How do I convert a Python UUID into a string?

Question

I need to be able to assign a UUID to a user and document this in a .txt file. This is all I have:

import uuid

a = input("What's your name?")
print(uuid.uuid1())
f.open(#file.txt)

I tried:

f.write(uuid.uuid1())

but nothing comes up, may be a logical error but I don't know.

@IgnacioVazquez-Abrams I'm quite new to python and I'm sorry, but I'm not too sure what you mean. — Alphin Philip
– Alphin Philip, Commented May 5, 2016 at 11:27
You can change a uuid to a string by putting str(...) around it, if that is actually what you're asking. — khelwood
– khelwood, Commented May 5, 2016 at 11:28
because the input is gained through main..is considered as variable...try to use quotation around when you re input... and also f=open("file.txt") not with dot — Eliethesaiyan
– Eliethesaiyan, Commented May 5, 2016 at 11:33
How about uuid.uuid4().hex? It returns a 32-character string. — Greg
– Greg, Commented Feb 9, 2019 at 19:08

sumit · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-05 11:28:33Z

278

you can try this !

 a = uuid.uuid1()
 str(a)
 --> '448096f0-12b4-11e6-88f1-180373e5e84a'

answered May 5, 2016 at 11:28

sumit

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3 Comments

Felipe Over a year ago

who downvoted this? The question is "How do I change a UUID to a string?" and this answers the question just fine. It's not going to return anything because it's showing how to turn a UUID into a string representation. Voting +1

Adam Mlodzinski Over a year ago

Will str(UUID) always return a string consisting of alphanumerics-plus-dashes? I couldn't find docs on UUID.__str__(). Or, would I need to use something like UUID.hex() or UUID.urn(), to ensure there are no non-printable characters in the resultant string?

sumit Over a year ago

@AdamMlodzinski Yes, from official python documentation docs.python.org/3/library/uuid.html#module-uuid and also check the source code for str method github.com/python/cpython/blob/master/Lib/uuid.py#L279

andyw · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-08 09:33:02Z

58

You can also do this. Removes the dashes as a bonus. link to docs.

import uuid
my_id = uuid.uuid4().hex

ffba27447d8e4285b7bdb4a6ec76db5c

UPDATE: trimmed UUIDs (without the dashes) are functionally identical to full UUIDS (discussion). The dashes in full UUIDs are always in the same position (article).

edited May 8, 2021 at 9:33

answered Jun 9, 2020 at 8:03

andyw

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4 Comments

Rohan Devaki Over a year ago

thankyou sir, do you have link to the docs?

Rohan Devaki Over a year ago

and will this still be unique? if we remove the dashes?

andyw Over a year ago

i've edited my answer to make link to docs more obvious.

andyw Over a year ago

updated my answer with respect to the impact of removing dashes.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-07 08:57:08Z

6

I came up with a different solution that worked for me as expected with Python 3.7.

import uuid

uid_str = uuid.uuid4().urn
your_id = uid_str[9:]

urn is the UUID as a URN as specified in RFC 4122.

edited Oct 7, 2021 at 8:57

CommunityBot

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answered Sep 5, 2019 at 19:45

abdullahselek

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Comments

Yaakov Bressler · Accepted Answer · 2023-01-10 22:30:44Z

5

f-string works as well:

import uuid

str_id = f'{uuid.uuid4()}'

answered Jan 10, 2023 at 22:30

Yaakov Bressler

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Comments

Wayne Werner · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-08 13:03:20Z

2

It's probably because you're not actually closing your file. This can cause problems. You want to use the context manager/with block when dealing with files, unless you really have a reason not to.

with open('file.txt', 'w') as f:
    # Do either this
    f.write(str(uuid.uuid1()))
    # **OR** this.
    # You can leave out the `end=''` if you want.
    # That was just included so that the two of these
    # commands do the same thing.
    print(uuid.uuid1(), end='', file=f)

This will automatically close your file when you're done, which will ensure that it's written to disk.

edited May 8, 2016 at 13:03

answered May 5, 2016 at 11:51

Wayne Werner

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2 Comments

Alphin Philip Over a year ago

I tried this and it keeps coming back as: TypeError: write() argument must be str, not UUID#

Wayne Werner Over a year ago

@AlphinPhilip updated my answer - you can do either one. The latter assumes that you're running python3.x+ or have run from __future__ import print_function

Eliethesaiyan · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-12 09:04:09Z

2

[update] i added str function to write it as string and close the file to make sure it does it immediately,before i had to terminate the program so the content would be write

 import uuid
 def main():
     a=input("What's your name?")
     print(uuid.uuid1())
 main()
 f=open("file.txt","w")
 f.write(str(uuid.uuid1()))
 f.close()

I guess this works for me

edited May 12, 2016 at 9:04

answered May 5, 2016 at 11:43

Eliethesaiyan

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4 Comments

Alphin Philip Over a year ago

I tried this and it keeps coming back as: TypeError: write() argument must be str, not UUID

Eliethesaiyan Over a year ago

@AlphinPhilip i hope you fixed it by then

djvg Over a year ago

Not sure if this matters to you, but it seems to me that the uuid1 you are printing is not the same as the one you are writing to file, because uuid.uuid1() != uuid.uuid1()

Eliethesaiyan Over a year ago

@Dennis, i was giving alternatives...either he can print it or generate it in astring variable and write it...or generate it and write it directly

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