Generate random alphanumeric string in Swift

Question

How can I generate a random alphanumeric string in Swift?

Answer 1

Swift 4.2 Update

Swift 4.2 introduced major improvements in dealing with random values and elements. You can read more about those improvements here. Here is the method reduced to a few lines:

func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
  let letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
  return String((0..<length).map{ _ in letters.randomElement()! })
}

Swift 3.0 Update

func randomString(length: Int) -> String {

    let letters : NSString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    let len = UInt32(letters.length)

    var randomString = ""

    for _ in 0 ..< length {
        let rand = arc4random_uniform(len)
        var nextChar = letters.character(at: Int(rand))
        randomString += NSString(characters: &nextChar, length: 1) as String
    }

    return randomString
}

Original answer:

func randomStringWithLength (len : Int) -> NSString {

    let letters : NSString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"

    var randomString : NSMutableString = NSMutableString(capacity: len)

    for (var i=0; i < len; i++){
        var length = UInt32 (letters.length)
        var rand = arc4random_uniform(length)
        randomString.appendFormat("%C", letters.characterAtIndex(Int(rand)))
    }

    return randomString
}

Answer 2

Here's a ready-to-use solution in Swiftier syntax. You can simply copy and paste it:

func randomAlphaNumericString(length: Int) -> String {
    let allowedChars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    let allowedCharsCount = UInt32(allowedChars.characters.count)
    var randomString = ""

    for _ in 0 ..< length {
        let randomNum = Int(arc4random_uniform(allowedCharsCount))
        let randomIndex = allowedChars.index(allowedChars.startIndex, offsetBy: randomNum)
        let newCharacter = allowedChars[randomIndex]
        randomString += String(newCharacter)
    }

    return randomString
}

---

If you prefer a Framework that also has some more handy features then feel free to checkout my project HandySwift. It also includes a beautiful solution for random alphanumeric strings:

String(randomWithLength: 8, allowedCharactersType: .alphaNumeric) // => "2TgM5sUG"

Answer 3

You may use it also in the following way:

extension String {

    static func random(length: Int = 20) -> String {

        let base = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
        var randomString: String = ""

        for _ in 0..<length {

            let randomValue = arc4random_uniform(UInt32(base.characters.count))
            randomString += "\(base[base.startIndex.advancedBy(Int(randomValue))])"
        }

        return randomString
    }
}

Simple usage:

let randomString = String.random()

Swift 3 Syntax:

extension String {

    static func random(length: Int = 20) -> String {
        let base = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
        var randomString: String = ""

        for _ in 0..<length {
            let randomValue = arc4random_uniform(UInt32(base.characters.count))
            randomString += "\(base[base.index(base.startIndex, offsetBy: Int(randomValue))])"
        }
        return randomString
    }
}

Swift 4 Syntax:

extension String {

    static func random(length: Int = 20) -> String {
        let base = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
        var randomString: String = ""

        for _ in 0..<length {
            let randomValue = arc4random_uniform(UInt32(base.count))
            randomString += "\(base[base.index(base.startIndex, offsetBy: Int(randomValue))])"
        }
        return randomString
    }
}

Answer 4

Swift:

let randomString = NSUUID().uuidString

Answer 5

Simple and Fast -- UUID().uuidString

// Returns a string created from the UUID, such as "E621E1F8-C36C-495A-93FC-0C247A3E6E5F"

public var uuidString: String { get }

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/uuid

Swift 3.0

let randomString = UUID().uuidString //0548CD07-7E2B-412B-AD69-5B2364644433
print(randomString.replacingOccurrences(of: "-", with: ""))
//0548CD077E2B412BAD695B2364644433

EDIT

Please don't confuse with UIDevice.current.identifierForVendor?.uuidString it won't give random values.

Answer 6

UPDATED 2019.

In the unusual case that

performance matters.

Here is an extremely clear function that caches:

func randomNameString(length: Int = 7)->String{
    
    enum s {
        static let c = Array("abcdefghjklmnpqrstuvwxyz12345789")
        static let k = UInt32(c.count)
    }
    
    var result = [Character](repeating: "-", count: length)
    
    for i in 0..<length {
        let r = Int(arc4random_uniform(s.k))
        result[i] = s.c[r]
    }
    
    return String(result)
}

This is for when you have a fixed, known character set.

Handy tip:

Note that "abcdefghjklmnpqrstuvwxyz12345789" avoids 'bad' characters

There is no 0, o, O, i, etc ... the characters humans often confuse.

This is often done for booking codes and similar codes which human customers will use.

Answer 7

With Swift 4.2 your best bet is to create a string with the characters you want and then use randomElement to pick each character:

let length = 32
let characters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
let randomCharacters = (0..<length).map{_ in characters.randomElement()!}
let randomString = String(randomCharacters)

I detail more about these changes here.

Answer 8

For folks who don't want to type out the entire set of characters:

func randomAlphanumericString(length: Int) -> String  {
    enum Statics {
        static let scalars = [UnicodeScalar("a").value...UnicodeScalar("z").value,
                              UnicodeScalar("A").value...UnicodeScalar("Z").value,
                              UnicodeScalar("0").value...UnicodeScalar("9").value].joined()

        static let characters = scalars.map { Character(UnicodeScalar($0)!) }
    }

    let result = (0..<length).map { _ in Statics.characters.randomElement()! }
    return String(result)
}

Answer 9

Swift 5.0

// Generating Random String
func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
    let letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    return String((0..<length).map{ _ in letters.randomElement()! })
}
// Calling to string
label.text = randomString(length: 3)

Answer 10

Swift 2.2 Version

// based on https://gist.github.com/samuel-mellert/20b3c99dec168255a046
// which is based on https://gist.github.com/szhernovoy/276e69eb90a0de84dd90
// Updated to work on Swift 2.2

func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
    let charactersString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    let charactersArray : [Character] = Array(charactersString.characters)

    var string = ""
    for _ in 0..<length {
        string.append(charactersArray[Int(arc4random()) % charactersArray.count])
    }

    return string
}

Basically call this method that will generate a random string the length of the integer handed to the function. To change the possible characters just edit the charactersString string. Supports unicode characters too.

https://gist.github.com/gingofthesouth/54bea667b28a815b2fe33a4da986e327

Answer 11

A pure Swift random String from any CharacterSet.

Usage: CharacterSet.alphanumerics.randomString(length: 100)

extension CharacterSet {
    /// extracting characters
    /// https://stackoverflow.com/a/52133647/1033581
    public func characters() -> [Character] {
        return codePoints().compactMap { UnicodeScalar($0) }.map { Character($0) }
    }
    public func codePoints() -> [Int] {
        var result: [Int] = []
        var plane = 0
        for (i, w) in bitmapRepresentation.enumerated() {
            let k = i % 8193
            if k == 8192 {
                plane = Int(w) << 13
                continue
            }
            let base = (plane + k) << 3
            for j in 0 ..< 8 where w & 1 << j != 0 {
                result.append(base + j)
            }
        }
        return result
    }

    /// building random string of desired length
    /// https://stackoverflow.com/a/42895178/1033581
    public func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
        let charArray = characters()
        let charArrayCount = UInt32(charArray.count)
        var randomString = ""
        for _ in 0 ..< length {
            randomString += String(charArray[Int(arc4random_uniform(charArrayCount))])
        }
        return randomString
    }
}

The characters() function is my fastest known implementation.

Answer 12

for Swift 3.0

func randomString(_ length: Int) -> String {

    let letters : NSString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    let len = UInt32(letters.length)

    var randomString = ""

    for _ in 0 ..< length {
        let rand = arc4random_uniform(len)
        var nextChar = letters.character(at: Int(rand))
        randomString += NSString(characters: &nextChar, length: 1) as String
    }

    return randomString
}

Answer 13

Loop free, though it is limited to 43 characters. If you need more, it can be modified. This approach has two advantages over solely using a UUID:

1. Greater Entropy by using lower case letters, as UUID() only generates upper case letters
2. A UUID is at most 36 characters long (including the 4 hyphens), but only 32 characters long without. Should you need something longer, or not want hyphens included, the use of the base64EncodedString handles this

Also, this function makes use of a UInt to avoid negative numbers.

 func generateRandom(size: UInt) -> String {
        let prefixSize = Int(min(size, 43))
        let uuidString = UUID().uuidString.replacingOccurrences(of: "-", with: "")
        return String(Data(uuidString.utf8)
            .base64EncodedString()
            .replacingOccurrences(of: "=", with: "")
            .prefix(prefixSize))
    }

Calling it in a loop to check output:

for _ in 0...10 {
    print(generateRandom(size: 32))
}

Which produces:

Nzk3NjgzMTdBQ0FBNDFCNzk2MDRENzZF
MUI5RURDQzE1RTdCNDA3RDg2MTI4QkQx
M0I3MjJBRjVFRTYyNDFCNkI5OUM1RUVC
RDA1RDZGQ0IzQjI1NDdGREI3NDgxM0Mx
NjcyNUQyOThCNzhCNEVFQTk1RTQ3NTIy
MDkwRTQ0RjFENUFGNEFDOTgyQTUxODI0
RDU2OTNBOUJGMDE4NDhEODlCNEQ1NjZG
RjM2MTUxRjM4RkY3NDU2OUFDOTI0Nzkz
QzUwOTE1N0U1RDVENDE4OEE5NTM2Rjcy
Nzk4QkMxNUJEMjYwNDJDQjhBQkY5QkY5
ODhFNjU0MDVEMUI2NEI5QUIyNjNCNkVF

Answer 14

func randomString(length: Int) -> String {
    // whatever letters you want to possibly appear in the output (unicode handled properly by Swift)
    let letters = "abcABC012你好吗😀🐱💥∆𝚹∌⌘"
    let n = UInt32(letters.characters.count)
    var out = ""
    for _ in 0..<length {
        let index = letters.startIndex.advancedBy(Int(arc4random_uniform(n)))
        out.append(letters[index])
    }
    return out
}

Answer 15

My even more Swift-ier implementation of the question:

func randomAlphanumericString(length: Int) -> String {

    let letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789".characters
    let lettersLength = UInt32(letters.count)

    let randomCharacters = (0..<length).map { i -> String in
        let offset = Int(arc4random_uniform(lettersLength))
        let c = letters[letters.startIndex.advancedBy(offset)]
        return String(c)
    }

    return randomCharacters.joinWithSeparator("")
}

Answer 16

The problem with responses to "I need random strings" questions (in whatever language) is practically every solution uses a flawed primary specification of string length. The questions themselves rarely reveal why the random strings are needed, but I would challenge you rarely need random strings of length, say 8. What you invariably need is some number of unique strings, for example, to use as identifiers for some purpose.

There are two leading ways to get strictly unique strings: deterministically (which is not random) and store/compare (which is onerous). What do we do? We give up the ghost. We go with probabilistic uniqueness instead. That is, we accept that there is some (however small) risk that our strings won't be unique. This is where understanding collision probability and entropy are helpful.

So I'll rephrase the invariable need as needing some number of strings with a small risk of repeat. As a concrete example, let's say you want to generate a potential of 5 million IDs. You don't want to store and compare each new string, and you want them to be random, so you accept some risk of repeat. As example, let's say a risk of less than 1 in a trillion chance of repeat. So what length of string do you need? Well, that question is underspecified as it depends on the characters used. But more importantly, it's misguided. What you need is a specification of the entropy of the strings, not their length. Entropy can be directly related to the probability of a repeat in some number of strings. String length can't.

And this is where a library like EntropyString can help. To generate random IDs that have less than 1 in a trillion chance of repeat in 5 million strings using EntropyString:

import EntropyString

let random = Random()
let bits = Entropy.bits(for: 5.0e6, risk: 1.0e12)
random.string(bits: bits)

"Rrrj6pN4d6GBrFLH4"

EntropyString uses a character set with 32 characters by default. There are other predefined characters sets, and you can specify your own characters as well. For example, generating IDs with the same entropy as above but using hex characters:

import EntropyString

let random = Random(.charSet16)
let bits = Entropy.bits(for: 5.0e6, risk: 1.0e12)
random.string(bits: bits)

"135fe71aec7a80c02dce5"

Note the difference in string length due to the difference in total number of characters in the character set used. The risk of repeat in the specified number of potential strings is the same. The string lengths are not. And best of all, the risk of repeat and the potential number of strings is explicit. No more guessing with string length.

Answer 17

If your random string should be secure-random, use this:

import Foundation
import Security

// ...

private static func createAlphaNumericRandomString(length: Int) -> String? {
    // create random numbers from 0 to 63
    // use random numbers as index for accessing characters from the symbols string
    // this limit is chosen because it is close to the number of possible symbols A-Z, a-z, 0-9
    // so the error rate for invalid indices is low
    let randomNumberModulo: UInt8 = 64

    // indices greater than the length of the symbols string are invalid
    // invalid indices are skipped
    let symbols = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789"

    var alphaNumericRandomString = ""

    let maximumIndex = symbols.count - 1

    while alphaNumericRandomString.count != length {
        let bytesCount = 1
        var randomByte: UInt8 = 0

        guard errSecSuccess == SecRandomCopyBytes(kSecRandomDefault, bytesCount, &randomByte) else {
            return nil
        }

        let randomIndex = randomByte % randomNumberModulo

        // check if index exceeds symbols string length, then skip
        guard randomIndex <= maximumIndex else { continue }

        let symbolIndex = symbols.index(symbols.startIndex, offsetBy: Int(randomIndex))
        alphaNumericRandomString.append(symbols[symbolIndex])
    }

    return alphaNumericRandomString
}

Answer 18

SWIFT 4

Using RandomNumberGenerator for better performance as Apple recommendation

Usage: String.random(20) Result: CifkNZ9wy9jBOT0KJtV4

extension String{
   static func random(length:Int)->String{
        let letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
        var randomString = ""

        while randomString.utf8.count < length{
            let randomLetter = letters.randomElement()
            randomString += randomLetter?.description ?? ""
        }
        return randomString
    }
}

Answer 19

If you just need a unique identifier, UUID().uuidString may serve your purposes.

Answer 20

Updated for Swift 4. Use a lazy stored variable on the class extension. This only gets computed once.

extension String {

    static var chars: [Character] = {
        return "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789".map({$0})
    }()

    static func random(length: Int) -> String {
        var partial: [Character] = []

        for _ in 0..<length {
            let rand = Int(arc4random_uniform(UInt32(chars.count)))
            partial.append(chars[rand])
        }

        return String(partial)
    }
}

String.random(length: 10) //STQp9JQxoq

Answer 21

This is the Swift-est solution I could come up with. Swift 3.0

extension String {
    static func random(length: Int) -> String {
        let letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
        let randomLength = UInt32(letters.characters.count)

        let randomString: String = (0 ..< length).reduce(String()) { accum, _ in
            let randomOffset = arc4random_uniform(randomLength)
            let randomIndex = letters.index(letters.startIndex, offsetBy: Int(randomOffset))
            return accum.appending(String(letters[randomIndex]))
        }

        return randomString
    } 
}

Answer 22

func randomUIDString(_ wlength: Int) -> String {

    let letters : NSString = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"
    var randomString = ""

    for _ in 0 ..< wlength {
        let length = UInt32 (letters.length)
        let rand = arc4random_uniform(length)
        randomString = randomString.appendingFormat("%C", letters.character(at: Int(rand)));
    }

    return randomString
}