Encoding Functions¶

Low-level functions for encoding and decoding display IDs.

UUID Encoding¶

encode_uuid¶

Encode a UUID to a 22-character base62 string.

from django_display_ids import encode_uuid
import uuid

u = uuid.UUID("550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000")
encoded = encode_uuid(u)  # -> "2aUyqjCzEIiEcYMKj7TZtw"

decode_uuid¶

Decode a base62 string back to a UUID.

from django_display_ids import decode_uuid

u = decode_uuid("2aUyqjCzEIiEcYMKj7TZtw")
# -> UUID("550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000")

Raises ValueError if the string is not valid base62 or wrong length.

Display ID Encoding¶

encode_display_id¶

Create a display ID from a prefix and UUID.

from django_display_ids import encode_display_id
import uuid

invoice_id = uuid.uuid4()
display_id = encode_display_id("inv", invoice_id)
# -> "inv_2aUyqjCzEIiEcYMKj7TZtw"

Parameters:

prefix: 1-16 lowercase letters.
uuid: A UUID object.

Raises ValueError if the prefix is invalid.

decode_display_id¶

Extract the prefix and UUID from a display ID.

from django_display_ids import decode_display_id

prefix, u = decode_display_id("inv_2aUyqjCzEIiEcYMKj7TZtw")
# prefix -> "inv"
# u -> UUID("550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000")

Raises InvalidIdentifierError if the format is invalid.

Display ID Format¶

A display ID consists of:

Component	Description
Prefix	1-16 lowercase letters (`[a-z]{1,16}`)
Separator	Underscore (`_`)
Encoded UUID	22 base62 characters (`[0-9A-Za-z]{22}`)

Pattern: ^[a-z]{1,16}_[0-9A-Za-z]{22}$

Example: inv_2aUyqjCzEIiEcYMKj7TZtw

Base62 Alphabet¶

The base62 encoding uses: 0-9, A-Z, a-z (62 characters total).

UUIDs are 128 bits, which requires exactly 22 base62 characters to represent.