Creating a unique timestamp in Java

Question

I need to create a timestamp (in milliseconds) in Java that is guaranteed to be unique in that particular VM-instance. I.e. need some way to throttle the throughput of System.currentTimeMillis() so that it returns at most one results every ms. Any ideas on how to implement that?

Answer 1

This will give a time as close the current time as possible without duplicates.

private static final AtomicLong LAST_TIME_MS = new AtomicLong();
public static long uniqueCurrentTimeMS() {
    long now = System.currentTimeMillis();
    while(true) {
        long lastTime = LAST_TIME_MS.get();
        if (lastTime >= now)
            now = lastTime+1;
        if (LAST_TIME_MS.compareAndSet(lastTime, now))
            return now;
    }
}

One way to avoid the limitation of one id per milli-second is to use a micro-second timestamp. i.e. multiply currentTimeMS by 1000. This will allow 1000 ids per milli-second.

Note: if time goes backwards, eg due to an NTP correction, the time will just progress at 1 milli-second per invocation until time catches up. ;)

Answer 2

You can use System.nanoTime() for better accuracy

Although I tried below and each time it gives different values, it probably is not guaranteed to be unique all the time.

public static void main(String[] args) {
        long time1 = System.nanoTime();
        long time2 = System.nanoTime();
        long time3 = System.nanoTime();
        System.out.println(time1);
        System.out.println(time2);
        System.out.println(time3);
    }

Another way is to use AtomicInteger/AtomicLong classes for unique numbers if the time is not important for you and you just need unique number, this probably is a btter choice.