How to generate a random alpha-numeric string

Question

I\'ve been looking for a simple Java algorithm to generate a pseudo-random alpha-numeric string. In my situation it would be used as a unique session/key identifie

Answer 1

I don't really like any of these answers regarding a "simple" solution :S

I would go for a simple ;), pure Java, one liner (entropy is based on random string length and the given character set):

public String randomString(int length, String characterSet) {
    return IntStream.range(0, length).map(i -> new SecureRandom().nextInt(characterSet.length())).mapToObj(randomInt -> characterSet.substring(randomInt, randomInt + 1)).collect(Collectors.joining());
}

@Test
public void buildFiveRandomStrings() {
    for (int q = 0; q < 5; q++) {
        System.out.println(randomString(10, "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789")); // The character set can basically be anything
    }
}

Or (a bit more readable old way)

public String randomString(int length, String characterSet) {
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); // Consider using StringBuffer if needed
    for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
        int randomInt = new SecureRandom().nextInt(characterSet.length());
        sb.append(characterSet.substring(randomInt, randomInt + 1));
    }
    return sb.toString();
}

@Test
public void buildFiveRandomStrings() {
    for (int q = 0; q < 5; q++) {
        System.out.println(randomString(10, "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789")); // The character set can basically be anything
    }
}

But on the other hand you could also go with UUID which has a pretty good entropy:

UUID.randomUUID().toString().replace("-", "")