Identigenium

A TypeScript library for generating unique, incremental ASCII/string based IDs using configurable character sets. It's super tiny and tree-shakeable (142 bytes minified and brotlied just using IncrementalIDProvider).

Features

• Incremental ID Generation: Generate IDs that increment through a custom character set
• Custom Character Sets: Use predefined ASCII character sets or define your own
• Prefix Support: Add custom prefixes to generated IDs
• Configurable ID Counter: Persist and resume ID generation state through saving and reinstating the ID generation counter.

Installation

npm install identigenium

Usage

Incremental IDs

import { IncrementalIDProvider } from 'identigenium';

//Each caracter is a possible "digit" - here a, b, c are possible digits
//Once digits are exhausted a new digit will be added to the ID and least significant digit will be started over
const provider = new IncrementalIDProvider('abc');
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'a'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'b'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'c'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'aa'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'ab'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'ac'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'ba'
//...
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'cc'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'aaa'
//...
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'acc'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'baa'
//...
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'ccc'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'aaaa'

Note: You must make sure your string of chars is a set of unique characters (or use one of the predefined sets, see below). This is not checked by the library to keep it slim at runtime.

Incremental IDs with Prefix

import { IncrementalIDProvider } from 'identigenium';

const provider = new IncrementalIDProvider('abc', 'ID-');
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'ID-a'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'ID-b'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'ID-c'

Start from given ID with ConfigurableIDProvider

import { ConfigurableIDProvider } from 'identigenium';

//Acts like it has already emitted 3 IDs, thus at the char with index 3
const provider = new ConfigurableIDProvider('abcxyz', 3);
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'x'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'y'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'z'
console.log(provider.idCounter);      //  6

Dynamic Counter Adjustment

import { ConfigurableIDProvider } from 'identigenium';

const provider = new ConfigurableIDProvider('abcxyz', 0);
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'a'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'b' idEpoch is now 2

provider.idCounter = 4;               // Continue emitting as if another 2 IDs had been generated (4 in total)

console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'y'

Predefined Character Sets

The library provides several predefined character sets under the identigenium/sets import:

import {
  UpperChars,      // 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'
  LowerChars,      // 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
  Chars,           // LowerChars + UpperChars
  Numbers,         // '0123456789'
  AlphaNumeric,    // Chars + Numbers
  Base64,          // AlphaNumeric + '+/'
  Base64URL,       // AlphaNumeric + '-_'
  Braces,          // '<{[()]}>'
  Slashes,         // '\\/'
  Separators,      // ',.:;?!'
  Quotes,          // '\'"'
  Miscellaneous,   // '@#%$|^~_+-*='
  SpecialChars     // Various special characters
} from 'identigenium/sets';

Example with Predefined Sets

import { IncrementalIDProvider } from 'identigenium';
import { AlphaNumeric } from 'identigenium/sets';

const provider = new IncrementalIDProvider(AlphaNumeric);
console.log(provider.generateID()); // '0'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // '1'
// ...
console.log(provider.generateID()); // '9'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'a'
console.log(provider.generateID()); // 'b'

Note: When using the number set '0123456789' don't expect IDs to follow numerical ordering. Each char is taken as a literal digit, resulting in a generation sequence of ..., '9', '00', '01', ..., '99', '000', '001', ... as from a string standpoint '1' !== '01' !== '001'.

API Reference

IDSource Interface

Interface for an ID source that provides unique identifiers. Both the incremental and the configurable provider implement this interface

interface IDSource {
  idStream: Generator<string, string, void>;
  generateID(): string;
}

Properties

• idStream: Generator<string, string, void> - A generator that yields unique string IDs. Can be used to iterate and generate IDs.
  • Example:

    // Using for-of loop
    for (const id of idSource.idStream) {
      console.log(id);
    }

  • Example:

    // Using next().value
    const nextId = idSource.idStream.next().value;
    console.log(nextId);

Methods

• generateID(): string - Generates and returns a new unique ID string.

IncrementalIDProvider

An incremental ID provider that generates unique identifiers using a specified character set and optional prefix. IDs are generated incrementally starting from the first character in the set, then progressing through combinations of increasing length.

class IncrementalIDProvider implements IDSource {
  constructor(permittedCharacters: string, prefix?: string);
  idStream: Generator<string, string, void>;
  generateID(): string;
}

Constructor

• new IncrementalIDProvider(permittedCharacters: string, prefix?: string)
  • permittedCharacters: A string containing all allowed characters for ID generation. MUST be a string of unique characters; this is not checked.
  • prefix: An optional prefix to prepend to all generated IDs (default: "")

Properties

• idStream: Generator<string, string, void>

Methods

• generateID(): string

ConfigurableIDProvider

A configurable ID provider that generates unique identifiers using a specified character set, prefix, and starting counter value. This provider allows for customizable ID generation with support for resuming from a specific counter position.

class ConfigurableIDProvider implements IDSource {
  constructor(permittedCharacters: string, startIDCounterWith?: number, prefix?: string);
  idCounter: number;
  idStream: Generator<string, string, void>;
  generateID(): string;
}

Constructor

• new ConfigurableIDProvider(permittedCharacters: string, startWithCounter?: number, prefix?: string)
  • permittedCharacters: A string containing all allowed characters for ID generation. MUST be a string of unique characters; this is not checked.
  • startWithCounter: The initial counter value to start ID generation from (default: 0)
  • prefix: An optional prefix to prepend to all generated IDs (default: "")

Properties

• idCounter: number - Gets or sets the number of already generated IDs. Returns the current counter value representing the number of IDs generated so far.
• idStream: Generator<string, string, void>

Methods

• generateID(): string

License

MIT