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

Using the YQL Contacts Table, you specify the user with the GUID value of 6677 with the guid key as seen in this example:

SELECT * FROM social.contacts WHERE guid='6677'

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

The YQL Social Tables use the me variable to store the GUID of the user running the application. For example, this YQL statement returns the contacts for the signed-in user:

SELECT * FROM social.contacts WHERE guid=me

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.

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