Short Unique IDs in PLpgSQL (PostgreSQL)

What is Sqids?

Sqids (pronounced "squids") is an open-source library that lets you generate short unique identifiers from numbers. These IDs are URL-safe, can encode several numbers, and do not contain common profanity words. Read more .

This is what they look like:

https://example.com/Lqj8a0

PLpgSQL (PostgreSQL)

Quick encode & decode example:

select sqids.encode(array[1, 2, 3], 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789', 0); -- 86Rf07
select sqids.decode('86Rf07', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789'); -- {1,2,3}

If IDs are too short, you can pad them to a certain length:

select sqids.encode(array[1, 2, 3], 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789', 10); -- 86Rf07xd4z
select sqids.decode('86Rf07xd4z', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789'); -- {1,2,3}

Create unique IDs by shuffling the alphabet:

select sqids.encode(array[1, 2, 3], 'k3G7QAe51FCsPW92uEOyq4Bg6Sp8YzVTmnU0liwDdHXLajZrfxNhobJIRcMvKt', 0); -- XRKUdQ
select sqids.decode('XRKUdQ', 'k3G7QAe51FCsPW92uEOyq4Bg6Sp8YzVTmnU0liwDdHXLajZrfxNhobJIRcMvKt'); -- {1,2,3}