1.9 KiB
loid
Loic Identifier. A Planck-time timestamp. An integer. Your problem.
let id = loid::loid(); // ~53 decimal digits, subject to the inevitable passing of time
let short = loid::short(); // ~30 decimal digits, subject to the inevitable passing of time
Two functions. One type (I512). One dependency (loic). No wrapper. No Display of
its own. No serde. No monotonicity. No opinions. Universal and absolute.
What it does
Each call samples the current moment via CLOCK_TAI (atomic time) and a generator
seeded from the kernel's entropy pool and stirred with the nanosecond of the
observation itself, producing a 512-bit signed integer counting Planck times since
the Loic epoch (the first ARPANET transmission, 1969-10-30 06:30:41 UTC). Nineteen
of its digits say which nanosecond you are in. The remaining thirty-four are the
universe's answer to which Planck time within that nanosecond, and the universe does
not repeat itself.
short() divides the full timestamp by 10²³, keeping ~11 of the original ~34
entropy digits. Two short() values minted in the same nanosecond collide with
probability better than one in a hundred billion, which is either reassuring or
terrifying depending on what you were planning to do with them.
Requirements
Linux, and a kernel that knows what TAI is. CLOCK_TAI is only TAI if a time daemon
has read a leap-second table and told the kernel the offset — chrony with
leapseclist /usr/share/zoneinfo/leap-seconds.list or leapsectz right/UTC, or ntpd with a leapfile. systemd-timesyncd never does. On a
machine where the offset is zero, the first call panics and tells you which line to
add. If you're on anything else, this crate is not for you, and you should reflect on
why.
License
Dual-licensed under AGPL-3.0 and the Loic Public License. See the workspace root for the terms, and the workspace README for the theoretical substrate the license keeps citing.