Guid.NewGuid() vs. new Guid()

Question

What's the difference between Guid.NewGuid() and new Guid()?

Which one is preferred?

Answer 1

new Guid() makes an "empty" all-0 guid (00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 is not very useful).

Guid.NewGuid() makes an actual guid with a unique value, what you probably want.

Answer 2

Guid.NewGuid() creates a new UUID using an algorithm that is designed to make collisions very, very unlikely.

new Guid() creates a UUID that is all-zeros.

Generally you would prefer the former, because that's the point of a UUID (unless you're receiving it from somewhere else of course).

There are cases where you do indeed want an all-zero UUID, but in this case Guid.Empty or default(Guid) is clearer about your intent, and there's less chance of someone reading it expecting a unique value had been created.

In all, new Guid() isn't that useful due to this lack of clarity, but it's not possible to have a value-type that doesn't have a parameterless constructor that returns an all-zeros-and-nulls value.

Edit: Actually, it is possible to have a parameterless constructor on a value type that doesn't set everything to zero and null, but you can't do it in C#, and the rules about when it will be called and when there will just be an all-zero struct created are confusing, so it's not a good idea anyway.