Who can explain what the unique identifier is exactly?

[Ovi]

I’ve looked at the explanation on the unique identifier page and is still not clear for me … it’s an unique ID for that operation that is created like : edit, submit, etc or it’s related to the user ? And in what cases it is useful ?

Thank you.

[Jeff_Hager]

It’s simply a unique value that will never be duplicated whenever it’s generated. You can use it for anything, but it’s nothing more than a unique value. You can Google GUID or UUID to learn more about it.

[MattLB]

I use it all the time in custom forms to relate two objects I am creating at the same time instead of using the RowID. In a Glide Acrion sequence you cannot create a new Row and then in the next operation use that RowID to ‘relate’ two items since their is no way to access the RowID.

Instead I use a UniqueID (which was created before I entered the screen) and then assign both objects I am creating the UniqueID. Now I have a unique relation between the two objects.

A hidden gem by the Glide team.

[Jeff_Hager]

Just to throw a couple of examples out there. One is in the post below. It’s a little complicated, but basically I’m setting a unique ID in a row, then I assign that unique ID to rows in another table via a list whenever a row is clicked. I do this to indicate that the row is “selected”. Instead of clearing the unique id from multiple rows, I simply change the unique id in the parent table which essentially resets all other rows. Hopefully the post makes more sense when you read it.

Reset Multiple Rows At Once

There have been several requests for people to find a way to clear a value in multiple rows. I was thinking about that and came up with a quick example of a way to handle that. Instead of trying to clear a value in an entire column, I realized we could just change one value on a parent column, load it as a single value in our sheet and then compare that parent value to a column that we set or unset for each row. It’s not about clearing an entire column, it’s about making a value in each row n…

Another real world example…at my day job I sometimes work with mapping software. Every single piece of farmable land in the United States has a shape that outlines it’s borders. There’s upwards of 100 million individual pieces of land (shapes). In the data that we receive from the government, each row is a shape and each shape has a unique ID. They call it a CLU, but it’s really a GUID (or a unique ID). It’s simply a unique value that can be assigned without having to compare to an existing database of ID’s to check if it’s a duplicate. It will always be unique. The odds of ever getting a duplicate ID are astronomically high and very very unlikely to happen.

[Darren_Murphy]

@MattLB

I use it all the time in custom forms to relate two objects I am creating at the same time instead of using the RowID. In a Glide Acrion sequence you cannot create a new Row and then in the next operation use that RowID to ‘relate’ two items since their is no way to access the RowID.

Yeah, I also use it in this way

It’s especially useful when you want to create a parent record and then zero or more child records at the same time. Real world example from one of my Apps is an accident report, with any number of related images.

[apaschea]

@MattLB @Jeff_Hager @Darren_Murphy

@MattLB

I use it all the time in custom forms to relate two objects I am creating at the same time instead of using the RowID. In a Glide Acrion sequence you cannot create a new Row and then in the next operation use that RowID to ‘relate’ two items since their is no way to access the RowID.

Instead I use a UniqueID (which was created before I entered the screen) and then assign both objects I am creating the UniqueID. Now I have a unique relation between the two objects.

I use it this way as well but had a question. Technically the unique ID is created in my custom form table. Then it is written to other tables when the order button is pressed. So the question is, is it unique only to the table in which it was created?

Of course the possibilities that such a number is recreated is slim to none. But if someone is feeding uniqueIDs from other tables into one, technically there is a chance that they won’t be unique? even if that chance is minuscule?

[Jeff_Hager]

It’s unique to the entire universe. An alien on a distant planet a million light years away may eventually duplicate the unique ID, but on earth it’s highly unlikely.

The Quick Guide to GUIDs – BetterExplained.

[Darren_Murphy]

But only this universe

[Jeff_Hager]

[MattLB]

What a way to start the day - getting a bug fixed and finding a better explanation of GUIDs.

Life is good in the Glideverse ™