A UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) is a 128-bit identifier standardized by RFC 9562 (formerly RFC 4122). UUIDs are designed to be unique across all systems without requiring a central registration authority. They are widely used in databases, distributed systems, APIs, and software development to identify resources, records, and entities without the risk of collision.
The standard UUID format consists of 32 hexadecimal digits displayed in five groups separated by hyphens, following the pattern 8-4-4-4-12. For example: 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000. This format is consistent across all UUID versions and is recognized by virtually every programming language, database, and framework.
UUIDs solve a fundamental problem in distributed computing: how to create identifiers that are guaranteed to be unique without coordination. Unlike auto-incrementing integers that require a central database, UUIDs can be generated independently on any device, at any time, and still maintain practical uniqueness. The probability of collision for random UUIDs (v4) is astronomically small — you would need to generate approximately 2.71 quintillion UUIDs to have a 50% chance of a single duplicate.