package sqids

Sqids OCaml

Sqids (pronounced "squids") is a small library that lets you generate unique IDs from numbers. It's good for link shortening, fast & URL-safe ID generation and decoding back into numbers for quicker database lookups.

Features:

• Encode multiple numbers - generate short IDs from one or several non-negative numbers

• Quick decoding - easily decode IDs back into numbers

• Unique IDs - generate unique IDs by shuffling the alphabet once

• ID padding - provide minimum length to make IDs more uniform

• URL safe - auto-generated IDs do not contain common profanity

• Randomized output - Sequential input provides nonconsecutive IDs

• Many implementations - Support for 40+ programming languages

🧰 Use-cases

Good for:

• Generating IDs for public URLs (eg: link shortening)

• Generating IDs for internal systems (eg: event tracking)

• Decoding for quicker database lookups (eg: by primary keys)

Not good for:

• Sensitive data (this is not an encryption library)

• User IDs (can be decoded revealing user count)

🚀 Getting started

Install:

opam install sqids

Add to dune-project:

(sqids (= 0.1.0))

Add to dune for your target:

(libraries sqids)

Try in utop:

# require "sqids";;
let s = Sqids.make () in
Sqids.encode s [1; 2; 3]

👩‍💻 Examples

Simple encode & decode:

Enforce a minimum length for IDs:

let sqids = Sqids.make ~min_length:10 () in
let id = Sqids.encode sqids [1; 2; 3] in (* "86Rf07xd4z" *)
let numbers = Sqids.decode sqids id in (* [1; 2; 3] *)

Randomize IDs by providing a custom alphabet:

let sqids = Sqids.make ~alphabet:"FxnXM1kBN6cuhsAvjW3Co7l2RePyY8DwaU04Tzt9fHQrqSVKdpimLGIJOgb5ZE" () in
let id = Sqids.encode sqids [1; 2; 3] in (* "B4aajs" *)
let numbers = Sqids.decode sqids id in (* [1; 2; 3] *)

Prevent specific words from appearing anywhere in the auto-generated IDs:

let sqids = Sqids.make ~blocklist:["86Rf07"] () in
let id = Sqids.encode sqids [1; 2; 3] in (* "se8ojk" *)
let numbers = Sqids.decode sqids id in (* [1; 2; 3] *)

📝 License

MIT