# HG changeset patch
# User Sylvain Thénault <sylvain.thenault@logilab.fr>
# Date 1268387490 -3600
# Node ID fa6671e836391d13b058da81a78edf9c06b48b5f
# Parent  56c16efedc51c9e0a467d04aa31a87760736f007
[utils] make_uid imrovment: using .hex already remove '-', make key argument optional, document it

diff -r 56c16efedc51 -r fa6671e83639 utils.py
--- a/utils.py	Fri Mar 12 10:50:37 2010 +0100
+++ b/utils.py	Fri Mar 12 10:51:30 2010 +0100
@@ -22,10 +22,18 @@
 # initialize random seed from current time
 random.seed()
 
-def make_uid(key):
-    # remove dash, generated uid are used as identifier sometimes (sql table
-    # names at least)
-    return str(key) + str(uuid4()).replace('-', '')
+def make_uid(key=None):
+    """Return a unique identifier string.
+
+    if specified, `key` is used to prefix the generated uid so it can be used
+    for instance as a DOM id or as sql table names.
+
+    See uuid.uuid4 documentation for the shape of the generated identifier, but
+    this is basicallly a 32 bits hexadecimal string.
+    """
+    if key is None:
+        return uuid4().hex
+    return str(key) + uuid4().hex
 
 
 def dump_class(cls, clsname):