[wp-hackers] GUID problem

[Lynne Pope]

On Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 7:36 AM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 2:25 PM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:
> > However, many people don't do that. To which I respond that the GUID
> > doesn't actually matter for most people. It's really only used as a
> > unique identifier in the feeds, and even then most feed readers don't
> > rely on it, but use a combination of it, the timestamp, several other
> > things.
>
> BTW, the whole point of a GUID in the feeds is to provide an
> identifier to feedreaders that uniquely identifies a post. So changing
> the GUID, ever, makes no real sense.
>
> On that note though, the GUID should be unique before it goes live on
> a website. If it's using http://localhost or something, then it's
> probably not unique. If, however, it's using a domain you control,
>  then you also have control over its uniqueness.


In this situation, the GUID is not only not unique on this blog, but it's
not unique on the Net. Two of the previously-used domains are in use again
running WordPress. So, the company here has GUID's that are almost certain
to match GUID's used by the newer owners of those domains.

My own blog also has GUID's containing domain names that are no longer in my
control (and heaps of localhost too). Has anyone written a script to convert
these over to UUID's and, if so, would changing to UUID impact on WordPress
now? If it's possible to convert GUID's to the UUID format without b0rking
WordPress I'd do it for everyone running PHP5/MySQL5. It would immediately
remove their confusion over the use of GUID's as links.

Lynne