Cookie user ID queston

[koryw]

I have this cgi perl script that sets a cookie and then checks to see if the cookie exists and prints out the value back to the browser (which all works fine). In my code below I would like to create a unique user id. I'm not passing any form or query string values to this cgi-bin script (the purpose of this script is not to do that), and I'm not sure what method to use to generate a unique identifier. I want the script to create the identifer and then initialize the cookie the next time the user comes back to the site or does a reload and then I will do some processing, like redirect the user to another site. Here is my code.

#!/opt/bin/perl

use CGI ':standard'; 
$query = new CGI();

$sweet = $query->cookie(-name=>'answers');#check for a cookie

#Get current Time
$current_time = localtime;

#does cookie exist
if ($sweet) {
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";

#create html page info 
print $query->start_html(-title=>"Session"),
   $query->h1("cookie exists   $sweet<BR>"),
   $query->p("The current time is $current_time<BR>");
    end_html;

#cookie doesn't exist, set one and send it to the browser
}else{
    $cookie = $query->cookie(-name=>'answers',
                 -value=>'Register',
                 -expires=>'+1h',
                 -path=>'/cgi-bin/');
    print $query->header(-type=>'text/html', -cookie=>$cookie);
    print "<B>Cookie Set  <b>";    
}
exit;

edited: Thu Mar 13 15:56:05 2003 by jeffa - code tags

[merlyn]

Well, I would be remiss if I didn't post the customary reference to my column on branding browsers with cookies. where all the usual facts are noted and sample tested code has been provided.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

[hardburn]

Take a look at Data::UUID.

----
Reinvent a rounder wheel.

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

[zby]

Try Data::Random - the function rand_chars() is just for you I gues.

[Hero Zzyzzx]

Maybe I'm not understanding the question, but in another thread (this one) you're using CGI::Session on the CPAN, which will take care of creating/assigning unique session ids for you automatically.

-Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from doubletalk.

[koryw]

This is a different program and I trying a different method, basically as a backup plan if we decide not to use cgi::session