given a script that generates a string of 12 characters randomly generated, how many possibilities there are for two string to be equal?
function rand_string( $length ) {
$chars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789";
$size = strlen( $chars );
for( $i = 0; $i < $length; $i++ ) {
$str .= $chars[ rand( 0, $size - 1 ) ];
}
return $str;
}
Assuming, A-Za-z0-9, there are 62 possible character values. Therefore, there are 62^12 (to-the-power-of) possible strings. That's roughly 3x10^21 (3 with 21 zeros).
Assuming a perfect random number generator, that's a 1 in 3x10^21 chance that any two particular strings will be equal.
Given that code and a length of 12, there are 6212 possible values. So (assuming a perfectly uniform random number generator, which rand() probably isn't) the chances are 1 in 3226266762397899821056 that a single call to that function will return any arbitrary 12-character string.
OTOH, if you are calling the function repeatedly and want to know how long until you are likely to get a repeat of any previously returned value, you would have to call it about 6.7e+10 times to have a 50% chance of a collision (again, assuming a uniform random number generator). You can get a reasonable approximation of the number of calls required for any collision probability p between 0 and 1 by calculating sqrt(-ln(1 - p) * 2 * 6212).
This falls under the Birth Paradox (how many people do you need in a room to have a 50% chance of two or more people having the same birthday).
Your 12-long 62-char strings come out to be about 72 bits. With the approximate detailed here, you can expect to generate about SQRT((pi / 2) * 62^12)) = 7.112x10^10 strings before getting a collision. So about 1 in 70 billion.
Related
I have many strings. Each string something like:
"i_love_pizza_123"
"whatever_this_is_now_later"
"programming_is_awesome"
"stack_overflow_ftw"
...etc
I need to be able to convert each string to a random number, 1-10. Each time that string gets converted, it should consistently be the same number. A sampling of strings, even with similar text should result in a fairly even spread of values 1-10.
My first thought was to do something like md5($string), then break down a-f,0-9 into ten roughly-equal groups, determine where the first character of the hash falls, and put it in that group. But doing so seems to have issues when converting 16 down to 10 by multiplying by 0.625, but that causes the spread to be uneven.
Thoughts on a good method to consistently convert a string to a random/repeatable number, 1-10? There has to be an easier way.
Here's a quick demo how you can do it.
function getOneToTenHash($str) {
$hash = hash('sha256', $str, true);
$unpacked = unpack("L", $hash); // convert first 4 bytes of hash to 32-bit unsigned int
$val = $unpacked[1];
return ($val % 10) + 1; // get 1 - 10 value
}
for ($i = 0; $i < 100; $i++) {
echo getOneToTenHash('str' . $i) . "\n";
}
How it works:
Basically you get the output of a hash function and downscale it to desired range (1..10 in this case).
In the example above, I used sha256 hash function which returns 32 bytes of arbitrary binary data. Then I extract just first 4 bytes as integer value (unpack()).
At this point I have a 4 bytes integer value (0..4294967295 range). In order to downscale it to 1..10 range I just take the remainder of division by 10 (0..9) and add 1.
It's not the only way to downscale the range but an easy one.
So, the above example consists of 3 steps:
get the hash value
convert the hash value to integer
downscale integer range
A much shorter example with crc32() function which returns integer value right away thus allowing us to omit step 2:
function getOneToTenHash($str) {
$int = crc32($str); // 0..4294967295
return ($int % 10) + 1; // 1..10
}
below maybe what u want
$inStr = "hello world";
$md5Str = md5($inStr);
$len = strlen($md5Str);
$out = 0;
for($i=0; $i<$len; $i++) {
$out = 7*$out + intval($md5Str[$i]); // if you want more random, can and random() here
}
$out = ($out % 10 + 9)%10; // scope= [1,10]
I want to create user accounts with a public_id which is always a unique, integer random (not incremental) value.
I can use loops to check if the random integer is unique, but that doesn't seem like a really nice solution.
I found some alphabetic-numeric generators, and I guess I could convert them to integers using some string to integer converter, but are there an integer -specific ways?
I also worry about possible collisions, but it looks like the chance will be always there in a long run.(?)
You can either use one of native php functions like mt_rand or use more reliably way - generating integer based on microtime function.
To ensure that the value is unique you need to add a unique index on a column in DB and write 'ON DUPLICATE UPDATE' to insert/update queries which will add some digits to the value if it is not unique
There are 2 possible solutions:
1) If your "long run" is really really long - it means this is
possible, that you are out of PHP_INT_MAX and there is no
only-integer-specific way.
2) If you are not out of PHP_INT_MAX - then you need some storage for
checking the ids.
In case of 1 you can use library hashids. To avoid collisions - you'll need some incremental counter on input. Then you can convert strings by each letter back to integer.
In case of 2 - you can use some in-memory database like redis for performance.
Using timeStamp will really do a great job since it uses time to generate it random numbers .you can also concatenate the below function with other random generated numbers.
function passkey($format = 'u', $utimestamp = null){
if (is_null($utimestamp)) {
$utimestamp = microtime(true);
}
$timestamp = floor($utimestamp);
$milliseconds = round(($utimestamp - $timestamp) * 1000000);
return date(preg_replace('`(?<!\\\\)u`', $milliseconds, $format),$timestamp);
}
echo passkey(); // 728362
You can use a linear congruential generator with a large period.
Here is one that generates unique integers which always have 6 digits. It will not generate duplicates until it has generated all numbers between 100000 and 996722, which gives you almost 900 000 different numbers.
The condition is that you can provide the function the number it last generated. So if you store the number in the database, you have to somehow retrieve the last assigned one, so you can feed it to this function:
function random_id($prev) {
return 100000 + (($prev-100000)*97 + 356563) % 896723;
}
$prev = 100000; // must be a 6 digit number: the initial seed.
// Generate the first 10 pseudo-random integers.
for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) {
$prev = random_id($prev);
echo $prev . "\n";
}
The above generation of the first 10 numbers yields:
456563
967700
331501
494085
123719
963860
855744
232445
749606
697735
You can do this for other ranges by following the rules in the referenced article on getting a full period in linear congruential generators. Concretely, if you want to generate numbers with n digits, where the first digit cannot be zero (so between 10n-1 and 10n-1), then I find it easiest to find a large prime just below 9⋅10n-1 to serve as the last number of the formula. The other two numbers can then be any positive integer, but better keep the first one small to avoid overflow.
However, PHP integers are limited to PHP_INT_MAX (typically 2147483647), so for numbers with 10 or more digits you will need to use floating point operators. The % operator should not be used then. Use fmod instead.
For example, to generate numbers with 12 digits, you could use this formula:
function random_id($prev) {
return 100000000000 + fmod((($prev-100000000000)*97 + 344980016453), 899999999981);
}
$prev = 100000000000; // must be a 12 digit number: the initial seed.
// Generate the first 10 pseudo-random integers.
for ($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++) {
$prev = random_id($prev);
echo $prev . "\n";
}
I am working in php and I am trying to create 1000 tickets in a database. Each ticket needs it's own unique code that consists of letters and numbers about 6 characters long.
EXP.
Tbl_Tickets
ID code
1 3F2jk7
2 2HGUF1
3 9FJDNJ
4 MFJEY9
5 23988D
I was wondering is there a simple way of doing this with php, or excel, or any other way for that matter. I know that i can use a random number generator, but the check for the Unique would have a large BigO notation and the check would get messy.
Unique is not compatible with random, but the following might suit:
=CHOOSE(RANDBETWEEN(1,2),RANDBETWEEN(0,9),CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(65,90)))
copied across to populate six columns (say A to F) with, in G:
=A1&B1&C1&D1&E1&F1
and both copied down to say row 1100. Then select G, copy Paste Special Values, and Remove Duplicates on ColumnG and select first 1000 entries.
You could easily create an array of strings in php and write it to a database:
function generateRandomString($length = 6, $letters = '1234567890QWERTYUIOPASDFGHJKLZXCVBNM'){
$s = '';
$lettersLength = strlen($letters)-1;
for($i = 0 ; $i < $length ; $i++){
$s .= $letters[rand(0,$lettersLength)];
}
return $s;
}
// Create an array with random strings
for ($i=0; $i<1000; $i++){
$ticket_numbers = array();
$ticket_number = generateRandomString();
while (in_array($ticket_number,$ticket_numbers))
$ticket_number = generateRandomString();
$ticket_numbers[] = $ticket_number;
}
// Write the array to a database
$con = mysqli_connect("myhost","myuser","mypassw","mybd") or die("Error");
foreach ($ticket_numbers as $number){
mysqli_query($con,"Your insert query using the value $number");
}
mysqli_close($con);
This should help you in the right direction though there are probably better ways to do this.
The function generateRandomString() was taken from How to generate random numbers/letters with PHP/Javascript
And another option. Encryption is guaranteed to be unique, so encrypting the numbers 0, 1, 2, ... will give you guaranteed unique random-seeming output. Six characters is 30 bits using Base32, or 36 bits using Base64. You will need a 30 (or 36 bit) cypher. Unless you have a library that includes Hasty Pudding cypher (unlikely) then just implement a simple four round Feistel cypher with the appropriate block size. It will not be completely secure, but it will be enough to defeat casual attacks.
This will produce random strings in column B with no repeats from B1 thru B1001
Sub Lottery()
Dim i As Long, j As Long, c As Collection
Set c = New Collection
v = Split("0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z", ",")
For i = 1 To 5000
can = ""
For j = 1 To 6
can = can & v(Application.RandBetween(0, 35))
Next j
On Error Resume Next
c.Add can, CStr(can)
On Error GoTo 0
If c.Count = 1000 Then Exit For
Next i
For i = 1 To 1000
Cells(i + 1, 2).Value = c(i)
Next i
End Sub
I need to convert a random text to a number. But the ramdom text has always to be converted to the same number. For example:
xxxx -> 10
testing -> 396
stackoverflow -> 72
I cant use the number of characters to convert the string cause if I have 2 strings with the same number characters they need to have a different number (at most times at least).
I do not need to have this number in a range. No! It can be any number, since it will always be the same given a certain string.
You could try using hashes (md5, sha1, etc):
$number = hexdec( md5("hello world") );
$number = hexdec( sha1("hello world") );
Hashes of the same string will transform to the same number.
What about;
$number = crc32($string);
Should be cheap, gives integer output, and produce reasonable randomness for your use case.
Other methods that have been shown have the potential of having collisions. The following should not.
$num = "";
for($i = 0; $i < strlen($str); $i++)
$num .= str_pad(ord($str[$i]), 3 "0", STR_PAD_LEFT);
return $num;
So I was wonder what are some good/preferred methods for generating a 'hex-like' value in PHP? Preferably, I would want to restrict it to 5 characters long like such: 1e1f7
Currently this is what I am doing:
echo dechex(mt_rand(10000, 99999));
however this gives me values anywhere from 4-5 characters long, and I want to keep it at a consistent 4 or 5.
What are some ways to better generate something like this in PHP? Is there even a built in function?
Note: When I say 'hex-like' I really just mean a random combination of letters and numbers. There does not have to be a restriction on available letters.
Something simple like:
$length = 5;
$string = "";
while ($length > 0) {
$string .= dechex(mt_rand(0,15));
$length -= 1;
}
return $string;
(untested)
Or fix your mt_rand range to: mt_rand(65535, 1048575) (10000-fffff in hex) or if you like tinfoil hats: mt_rand(hexdec("10000"), hexdec("ffffff"))
The advantage of the while-loop approach is that it works for arbitrarily long strings. If you'd want 32 random characters you're well over the integer limit and a single mt_rand will not work.
If you really just want random stuff, I'd propose:
$length = 5;
$string = "";
$characters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789-=+!##$%^&*()[]"; // change to whatever characters you want
while ($length > 0) {
$string .= $characters[mt_rand(0,strlen($characters)-1)];
$length -= 1;
}
return $string;
(untested)
echo substr( base64_encode( mt_rand(1000, mt_getrandmax() ), 0, 5);
This uses more of the alphabet due to the base64, but remember that it will include upper and lower case letters along with numbers.
Why all the work sha1 is tested and evenly distributed:
substr(sha1(uniqid('moreentropyhere')),0,5);
I have used this to generate millions and millions of uniq uids for sharding tables, no collisions and remarkably evenly distributed regardless of the length you use...
you can even use binary form of sha1 hash for base 64:
base64_encode(sha1(uniqid('moreentropyhere'), true))
to limit characters, you can use a regex:
substr(preg_replace('~[^a-km-np-z2-9]~','',strtolower(base64_encode(sha1(uniqid(),true)))),0,6)
Here we limited 0,1,l (letter), and o (letter) from the string, trading a little entropy to prevent confusion (and service tickets) during entry for all ages...