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How to turn a large number into a shorter one with letters

Hello,

I'm generating an order number based on the unix timestamp and a random number added to the end to make sure that it is a globally unique number.

The number ends up being really long and I would like to put some letters in it.

Is there a good way to take the generated numbers and convert it to something shorter with letters in it. Or a better way to generate a unique identifier with letters. I used the unix time since it makes sure that all orders have a different number.

Here is a sample number:
6134713354211947

thanks!!

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kiwistag

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Jaime Olivares

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DaemonBarber

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Cornelia Yoder

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Ray Paseur

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Kyle Hamilton

what about creating an auto incrementing primary key in the database to use as the order number. this will always be unique.

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Member_2_248744

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Orcbighter

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parlays

ASKER

thanks so much everyone!

Member_2_248744

OK, glad you got something to work, After I posted here last time, I got to consider that the mt_rand( ) is seeded with a server time stamp, so It likely will not be different with the same microtime( ), and according to some, it is possible in muti-processor servers to get the same microtime( ) , , so I did this to get a unique ID, instead of any call to get a random, I get the IP from $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], which will probally be different if the microtime( ) is identical. AND I looked up a neat function to shorten an integer string, it's -
base_convert($uID, 10, 36);
you might use it to get a shorter string for integer strings.

below is the code for the makeUID($noNum = false) function, which always outputs an eleven character string.
if you set the $noNum to true it will have NO integers in the string just a-z in lower and Caps

function makeUID($noNum = false) {
	$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
	if (strlen($ip)<2) $ip = '91'; else {
		$ip = str_replace('.', '', $ip);
		$ip=substr($ip,strlen($ip)-2);
		}
	$mt = microtime(false);
	$uID=substr($mt,2,6);
	$mt=substr($mt,13);
	$as4 = (int) $ip{1};
	$as2 = (int) $uID{5};
	$e2 = $as2+$as4;
	$uID=$mt.$ip.$uID;
	$k2 = array('6','3','7','4','9','5','4','8','3','8','7','4','5','9','3','8','6','5','3');
	$uID{0}= $k2[$e2];
	$uID=base_convert($uID, 10, 36);
	if ($noNum) $uID = strtr($uID, '01234567890', 'VBMDPFUHWR');
	return $uID;
}

$uID = makeUID();
$uID2 = makeUID(true);
echo strlen($uID),'=length, uID= ',$uID,' , uID2= ',$uID2,'<br />';

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I believe this will have a very very high probability to generate unique strings

parlays

ASKER

You are the man! I appreciate you taking the time with those write-ups, I learned a lot. Thanks!!