1.\" Copyright (c) 2002 Marcel Moolenaar 2.\" All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 8.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 9.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 10.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 12.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 13.\" 14.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR 15.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES 16.\" OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. 17.\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, 18.\" INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT 19.\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, 20.\" DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY 21.\" THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT 22.\" (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF 23.\" THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 24.\" 25.\" $FreeBSD$ 26.\" 27.Dd May 23, 2002 28.Dt UUIDGEN 1 29.Os 30.Sh NAME 31.Nm uuidgen 32.Nd generate universally unique identifiers 33.Sh SYNOPSIS 34.Nm 35.Op Fl 1 36.Op Fl n Ar count 37.Sh DESCRIPTION 38The 39.Nm 40utility by default generates a single universally unique identifier (UUID), 41also known as a globally unique identifier (GUID). 42The UUID is written to stdout. 43The following options can be used to change the number of identifiers 44and the method used: 45.Bl -tag -width indent 46.It Fl 1 47This option only has effect if multiple identifiers are to be generated and 48instructs 49.Nm 50to not generate them in batch, but one at a time. 51.It Fl n 52This option controls the number of identifiers generated. 53By default, multiple 54identifiers are generated in batch. 55.El 56.Pp 57Batched generation yields a dense set of identifiers in such a way that there 58is no identifier that is larger than the smallest identifier in the set and 59smaller than the largest identifier in the set and that is not already in the 60set. 61.Pp 62When generating the identifiers one at a time, the identifiers will be close 63to each other, but operating system latency and processing time will be 64reflected in the distance between two successive identifiers. 65.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 66.Ex -std 67.Sh SEE ALSO 68.Xr uuidgen 2 69.Sh HISTORY 70The 71.Nm 72command first appeared in 73.Fx 5.0 . 74