newid

Generates human-readable, globally unique IDs (GUIDs) in two different formats, based on arguments you provide. The length of the human-readable format of the GUID value is either 32 bytes (with no dashes) or 36 bytes (with dashes).

Syntax

newid([optionflag])

Parameters

Examples

Usage

  • newid generates two values for the globally unique ID (GUID) based on arguments you pass to newid. The default argument generates GUIDs without dashes. By default newid returns new values for every filtered row.

  • You can use newid in defaults, rules, and triggers, similar to other functions.

  • Make sure the length of the varchar column is at least 32 bytes for the GUID format without dashes, and at least 36 bytes for the GUID format with dashes. The column length is truncated if it is not declared with these minimum required lengths. Truncation increases the probability of duplicate values.

  • An argument of zero is equivalent to the default.

  • You can use the GUID format without dashes with the strtobin function to convert the GUID value to 16-byte binary data. However, using strtobin with the GUID format with dashes results in NULL values.

  • Because GUIDs are globally unique, they can be transported across domains without generating duplicates.

Standards

ANSI SQL – Compliance level: Transact-SQL extension.

Permissions

Any user can execute newid.