uuid-ossp

uuid-ossp : generate universally unique identifiers (UUIDs)

Overview

ID	Extension	Package	Version	Category	License	Language
4930	uuid-ossp	uuid-ossp	`1.1`	FUNC	PostgreSQL	C

Attribute	Has Binary	Has Library	Need Load	Has DDL	Relocatable	Trusted
--s-dt-	No	Yes	No	Yes	no	yes

Relationships
Need By	babelfishpg_tsql
See Also	pg_idkit pgx_ulid pg_uuidv7 pg_hashids sequential_uuids permuteseq ddsketch vasco

Packages

PG18	PG17	PG16	PG15	PG14
1.1	1.1	1.1	1.1	1.1

This is a built-in contrib extension ship with the PostgreSQL kernel

Install

Create this extension with:

CREATE EXTENSION uuid-ossp;

Usage

uuid-ossp: UUID generation functions

Provides functions to generate UUIDs using several standard algorithms. Note: for simple random UUIDs, consider using the built-in gen_random_uuid() instead.

CREATE EXTENSION "uuid-ossp";

UUID Generation Functions

Function	Description
`uuid_generate_v1()`	Version 1: MAC address + timestamp
`uuid_generate_v1mc()`	Version 1 with random multicast MAC
`uuid_generate_v3(namespace uuid, name text)`	Version 3: MD5 hash of namespace + name
`uuid_generate_v4()`	Version 4: fully random
`uuid_generate_v5(namespace uuid, name text)`	Version 5: SHA-1 hash of namespace + name (preferred over v3)

Namespace Constants

Function	Description
`uuid_nil()`	Nil UUID (all zeros)
`uuid_ns_dns()`	DNS namespace
`uuid_ns_url()`	URL namespace
`uuid_ns_oid()`	ISO OID namespace
`uuid_ns_x500()`	X.500 DN namespace

Examples

-- Random UUID (v4)
SELECT uuid_generate_v4();

-- Timestamp-based UUID (v1)
SELECT uuid_generate_v1();

-- Deterministic UUID from name (v5, preferred over v3)
SELECT uuid_generate_v5(uuid_ns_url(), 'http://www.postgresql.org');

-- Use as default primary key
CREATE TABLE items (
  id uuid DEFAULT uuid_generate_v4() PRIMARY KEY,
  name text
);

Last updated on 2026-03-12

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