Generating a unique string value is a fairly common idiom. I always thought the fastest/easiest way to do so was by merging a timestamp with a random value. Not really unique, but fairly close nevertheless.
Yet, there's better way by using
UUID which provides a more reliable unique identifier. Most languages either have it build in or there's a library available.
For example, in php I could use the build in
uniqid() function:
print uniqid();
> "4c5896b421e54"
or in ruby with the help of the
uuid gem:
UUID.generate
> "73f93750-817b-012d-5ea3-00242165bf55"