Platform-independent GUID creation?

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <a01vup$p52$1 at news1.xs4all.nl>,
Irmen de Jong <usenet at NOSPAM-irmen.cjb.net> wrote:
>Aahz wrote:
>> 
>> The problem is that the DCE/OSF GUID standard specifies using the MAC
>> address of the network card as part of a GUID.  There isn't a portable
>> way to get that, unfortunately.
>
>I've crafted my own Guid function, and it is used heavily in Pyro
>(pyro.sourceforge.net).  It uses the machine's IP address instead of
>the MAC address, and adds the Pid and some other stuff (timestamp,
>random number).
>
>I don't know the DCE standard, but I do think that my routine is
>fairly "safe", so to speak.  At least it is portable across all Python
>implementations, but the machine needs to have an IP address. A
>physical MAC address is not requiered, so it should work nicely on
>modem-only machines.

Nice try.  (That's partly serious, partly sarcasm.)  It probably works
for limited applications, but it's definitely not a guaranteed GUID.
One of the big problems with your method is that the widespread adoption
of NAT combined with excessive use of "private" IP addresses means that
there's a lot of IP address duplication out there.

Perhaps once IPv6 becomes the global standard, your method will be
sufficient.
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