Re: [Boost-users] [Review] UUID library (mini-)review starts today, November 23rd

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] [Review] UUID library (mini-)review starts today, November 23rd
From: Scott McMurray (me22.ca+boost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-12-05 10:44:00

On 2008-12-05, Andy Tompkins <atompkins_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> On Tue, 2 Dec 2008 00:00:32 -0500, "Scott McMurray" said:
>> I'd rather know whether it was v3 or v5 somewhere more obvious than
>> the design notes, though.  If I were using v3 (MD5) uuids and switched
>> to boost not knowing that v5 (SHA1) uuids exist, I'd likely be very
>> confused when my code stops working with my data.
>
> Hmm, I'd be surprised if your code stopped working.

Well, if I had some UUIDs in a database that were generated from a v3
algorithm, and I tried to look one up from the base string, but
generated the UUID from the v5 algorithm, the lookup would fail.

Though I have no idea whether this would be an issue in practice.

> But regardless,
> would it be enough to add a/some member functions to uuid so that one
> could ask what type of uuid it was?  For example:
>
> boost::uuids::version_type v = u.version();
>

I think that's an excellent idea.

I don't think it solves the issue, though, since I likely wouldn't
think to check going from some hypothetical old C API's

    UuidCreateByName(&id, UUID_NAMESPACE_DNS, "www.widgets.com", 15);

to

    id = boost::uuids::uuid::create(dns_namespace_uuid, "www.widgets.com");