Generate random alphanumeric string in Swift

Question

How can I generate a random alphanumeric string in Swift?

Answer 1

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 2

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 3

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 4

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 5

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 6

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"