Create a unique number with javascript time

Question

A better approach would be:

new Date().valueOf();

instead of

new Date().getUTCMilliseconds();

valueOf() is "most likely" a unique number. http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_valueof_date.asp.

The shortest way to create a number that you can be pretty sure will be unique among as many separate instances as you can think of is

Date.now() + Math.random()

If there is a 1 millisecond difference in function call, it is 100% guaranteed to generate a different number. For function calls within the same millisecond you should only start to be worried if you are creating more than a few million numbers within this same millisecond, which is not very probable.

For more on the probability of getting a repeated number within the same millisecond see https://stackoverflow.com/a/28220928/4617597

If you just want a unique-ish number, then

var timestamp = new Date().getUTCMilliseconds();

would get you a simple number. But if you need the readable version, you're in for a bit of processing:

var now = new Date();

timestamp = now.getFullYear().toString(); // 2011
timestamp += (now.getMonth < 9 ? '0' : '') + now.getMonth().toString(); // JS months are 0-based, so +1 and pad with 0's
timestamp += ((now.getDate < 10) ? '0' : '') + now.getDate().toString(); // pad with a 0
... etc... with .getHours(), getMinutes(), getSeconds(), getMilliseconds()

This can be achieved simply with the following code:

var date = new Date();
var components = [
    date.getYear(),
    date.getMonth(),
    date.getDate(),
    date.getHours(),
    date.getMinutes(),
    date.getSeconds(),
    date.getMilliseconds()
];

var id = components.join("");

Here's what I do when I want something smaller than a bunch of numbers - change base.

var uid = (new Date().getTime()).toString(36)

This performs faster than creating a Date instance, uses less code and will always produce a unique number (locally):

function uniqueNumber() {
    var date = Date.now();

    // If created at same millisecond as previous
    if (date <= uniqueNumber.previous) {
        date = ++uniqueNumber.previous;
    } else {
        uniqueNumber.previous = date;
    }

    return date;
}

uniqueNumber.previous = 0;

jsfiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/j8aLocan/

I've released this on Bower and npm: https://github.com/stevenvachon/unique-number

You could also use something more elaborate such as cuid, puid or shortid to generate a non-number.

I use

Math.floor(new Date().valueOf() * Math.random())

So if by any chance the code is fired at the same time there is also a teeny chance that the random numbers will be the same.