CompactRef

Generate compact, human-facing references from ULIDs, UUIDs and other stable internal identifiers.

CompactRef is useful when an application keeps a full internal identifier but needs a shorter reference for users, support teams, documents or searches.

CompactRef generates compact references, not globally unique identifiers.

A short reference has fewer possible values than the identifier it is derived from, so two identifiers can produce the same reference. Keep the ULID or UUID as the primary key, put a unique constraint on the reference column, and use attempt to derive another one when that constraint rejects a write. Choosing a suffix length sizes the reference so this stays rare.

Installation

pip install compactref

Generate a reference from a ULID

from compactref import generate_reference

reference = generate_reference(
    "01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C",
)

print(reference)

Possible output:

20260710482731

Add a prefix and separators

from compactref import generate_reference

reference = generate_reference(
    "01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C",
    prefix="INC",
    separator="-",
)

print(reference)

Possible output:

INC-20260710-482731

Use a UUID

from uuid import uuid4

from compactref import generate_reference

internal_id = uuid4()
reference = generate_reference(internal_id)

Configure the suffix length

reference = generate_reference(
    "01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C",
    suffix_length=8,
)

Possible output:

2026071048273164

Change the date format

The date_format argument accepts any datetime.strftime pattern. A finer-grained format also produces smaller collision buckets (see Choosing a suffix length).

reference = generate_reference(
    "01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C",
    date_format="%Y%m%d-%H",
    separator="-",
    prefix="INC",
)

Possible output:

INC-20260710-14-482731

Use an integer or bytes identifier

from compactref import generate_reference

from_integer = generate_reference(123456789)
from_bytes = generate_reference(b"internal-record-123")

Deterministic generation

The same identifier, date and configuration produce the same reference — on every machine:

from datetime import datetime

from compactref import generate_reference

generated_at = datetime(2026, 7, 10)

first = generate_reference(
    "01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C",
    generated_at=generated_at,
)

second = generate_reference(
    "01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C",
    generated_at=generated_at,
)

assert first == second

Timezones

The date part is a bucket label, so every caller has to agree on which bucket an instant falls in. CompactRef therefore never reads the system timezone. tz decides how the date is expressed, and defaults to UTC:

from datetime import datetime, timezone

from compactref import generate_reference

instant = datetime(2026, 7, 13, 23, 30, tzinfo=timezone.utc)

# The same instant, from a server anywhere in the world.
generate_reference("01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C", generated_at=instant)
# 'RDR-20260713-385177'  in Lima, in Tokyo, in Auckland

An aware generated_at is converted into tz first, so two servers holding the same instant agree. A naive one is taken at face value, as a wall clock you chose — CompactRef will not guess what it meant.

Following a business day instead of UTC

Pass a zone when the bucket should follow the day your business counts, not the day UTC counts. An order taken at 23:50 in Madrid belongs to the Madrid day:

from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo

generate_reference(
    "01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C",
    generated_at=instant,
    tz=ZoneInfo("Europe/Madrid"),
)

Upgrading from 0.2.x

Before 0.3.0 the default clock was datetime.now() — naive local time — so a reference depended on the machine that produced it. The same identifier at the same instant became 20260713… in Lima and 20260714… in Tokyo.

If your servers do not run in UTC, references generated from now on will land in a different bucket than they used to: roughly 21% of them for a UTC−5 server, 38% for UTC+9, since that is how often the local date differs from the UTC date.

Already-stored references are unaffected — they are strings in a column, and nothing rewrites them. What changes is what new calls return. Two things to check:

1. If you recompute a reference to look a record up, rather than storing it, pin the old behaviour by passing the zone your servers used: tz=ZoneInfo("America/Lima").
2. If you store the reference, as this README has always advised, there is nothing to do.

Recovering from a collision

Because a reference is derived from its source, the same source always produces the same reference. Retrying a rejected reference therefore returns the identical string, however many times you ask.

attempt is what makes a unique constraint recoverable. Raising it derives a different reference from the same source, so when attempt 0 is already taken you can offer attempt 1:

from compactref import generate_reference

def assign_reference(session, product):
    for attempt in range(10):
        reference = generate_reference(
            product.id,
            prefix="RDR",
            separator="-",
            attempt=attempt,
        )
        if not session.query(exists_reference(reference)).scalar():
            return reference

    raise RuntimeError("ten attempts collided; the suffix is too short")

Each attempt is deterministic in its own right, so a reference remains recomputable later from the source and the attempt that won — store the attempt alongside the reference if you need to rederive it.

first = generate_reference("01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C")
second = generate_reference("01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C", attempt=1)

assert first != second
assert second == generate_reference(
    "01J2H8NQPG6B5X8KGN97SX3R5C",
    attempt=1,
)

attempt defaults to 0, which reproduces the references CompactRef produced before the argument existed. References already stored by callers on 0.1.0 remain valid.

Reaching for attempt on most writes is a sign the suffix is too short, not that the retry loop is working. Size it with expected_collisions() below.

Supported source types

CompactRef accepts:

• ULIDs represented as strings
• UUID objects
• strings
• bytes
• non-negative integers

Choosing a suffix length

A reference is unique only within a single bucket — references that share the same prefix and date part. Because the date resets each day, what matters is how many references you expect per bucket (for the default format, per day), not the all-time total.

Two helpers size the suffix using the birthday model.

Estimate the collision risk

collision_probability(reference_count, suffix_length) returns the probability that at least two references in one bucket share the same suffix:

from compactref import collision_probability

collision_probability(50, suffix_length=4)   # 0.1153  -> ~11.5%
collision_probability(50, suffix_length=6)   # 0.0012  -> ~0.1%
collision_probability(120, suffix_length=4)  # 0.5103  -> coin flip

Count the collisions, not just the risk

collision_probability() saturates. Past a certain volume every format reports "almost certainly", which stops separating a format that collides twice a month from one that collides fifty times.

expected_collisions(reference_count, suffix_length) returns how many colliding pairs are expected in one bucket — two references sharing a suffix is one pair:

from compactref import collision_probability, expected_collisions

collision_probability(2_000, suffix_length=3)   # 1.0   -> "certain"
collision_probability(20_000, suffix_length=3)  # 1.0   -> "certain", equally

expected_collisions(2_000, suffix_length=3)     # 1999   pairs
expected_collisions(20_000, suffix_length=3)    # 199990 pairs

Both formats are certain to collide. Only the second number says how badly, which is what sizes a suffix.

It is a measure of crowding, not a count of retries.

A colliding pair is not a rejected insert. A suffix drawn k times is k * (k - 1) / 2 pairs but only k - 1 rejected inserts, so the two agree while a bucket is sparse and part company once it fills. Two thousand references over three digits is 1999 pairs but roughly 1135 rejected inserts — the pair count overstates the retries by more than half.

Use it to compare formats. Do not size a retry budget with it.

Find a safe volume

max_references(suffix_length, max_probability=0.01) returns the largest number of references that keeps the risk at or below the threshold (1% by default):

from compactref import max_references

max_references(4)         # 14   -> under 1% risk with 4 digits
max_references(6)         # 142  -> under 1% risk with 6 digits
max_references(6, 0.05)   # 320  -> if you accept up to 5% risk

Pick a length for your volume

suffix_length_for(reference_count, max_probability=0.01) answers the question in the direction people actually ask it — you know your volume and want a length:

from compactref import suffix_length_for

suffix_length_for(200)              # 7  -> 200 a day needs 7 digits
suffix_length_for(200, 0.10)        # 6  -> if you accept up to 10% risk
suffix_length_for(5_000)            # 10

The count is per bucket, and date_format decides the bucket. A daily format wants references per day; a monthly one wants references per month — around thirty times as many, needing a longer suffix, not a shorter one. Getting that backwards is the commonest way to size a reference badly.

Size a retry budget

expected_rejected_inserts(reference_count, suffix_length) returns how many inserts a unique constraint will reject — which is how many references need regenerating with a higher attempt. This is the number to plan with:

from compactref import expected_colliding_pairs, expected_rejected_inserts

expected_rejected_inserts(200, suffix_length=7)   # 0.002 -> effectively never
expected_rejected_inserts(2_000, suffix_length=3) # 1135  -> a bad format

expected_colliding_pairs(2_000, suffix_length=3)  # 1999  -> pairs, not retries

An insert can only be rejected once, so this can never exceed the reference count. Colliding pairs can, and do — which is why they are the wrong number to size a retry budget with.

For roughly 200 references per day, a 7-digit suffix keeps the risk well under 1%.

Uniqueness warning

CompactRef does not replace the original internal identifier.

Shortening an identifier reduces the number of possible values. Different internal identifiers can produce the same compact reference. No suffix length makes this impossible; a longer one only makes it rarer.

Applications requiring unique references should:

1. Keep the original ULID or UUID as the internal identifier. The reference is for humans; the identifier is for the database.
2. Add a unique constraint to the reference column, so a collision surfaces as a rejected write rather than two products quietly sharing a reference.
3. Handle that rejection by retrying with a higher attempt, as in Recovering from a collision.
4. Size suffix_length for the expected volume per bucket, using expected_collisions(), so step 3 stays a rare path rather than the normal one.

Requirements

Python 3.10 or newer. No runtime dependencies.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

Version 0.2.0 added the attempt argument and expected_collisions(). References produced by 0.1.0 are unchanged: attempt defaults to 0, which reproduces them byte for byte, so anything already stored stays valid.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome at github.com/neosergio/compactref.

Maintainers: see RELEASING.md for how a version reaches PyPI.

License

MIT