Globally Unique Identifier (GUID)
A GUID identifies a person. In a URI, the GUID identifies the person who is associated with the data of the resource. For example, the following URI refers to the contacts (acquaintances) of the person whose GUID is 6677.
http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/user/6677/contacts
An application can obtain the GUID of the person who is running the application. To obtain this GUID, an application calls the HTTP GET operation on the following URI:
http://social.yahooapis.com/v1/me/guid
GUIDs have the following characteristics:
- A GUID exists for every Yahoo! ID and is never the same as the Yahoo! ID.
- A GUID is generated randomly and cannot be chosen by an end user.
- A GUID is printable, but to an end user it appears as a random string of characters.
- A GUID is permanent. In other words, even if a user changes profile information such as an email address, the GUID stays the same.
- Applications can store (cache) GUIDs for later use.
- A GUID is 26 bytes long. To improve readability, most of the GUID examples in this guide are shorter, for example, a GUID of 6674.
- A GUID can contain only the following characters: A-Z and 2-7. An example GUID is: AFW3PUIPZUCXGXQNBV4SZP6SHM
For syntax and other details, see the Introspective GUID section.