To "attempt" to guarantee uniqueness you could try hashing, but it's one way only and you might get clashes.

On Tue, 14 Mar 2023, 9:55 am Tom P via ozdotnet, <ozdotnet@ozdotnet.com> wrote:
Hello

I was hoping some of the SQL experts here could help with a problem I am facing. Currently have covid too so perhaps I'm not thinking clearly...

Long story short, is there a way in SQL Server to convert strings (varchars) of any length to exactly 32, keeping uniqueness? It would also be nice if I could convert them back to ensure I haven't lost information.

Briefly, the reason I want to do this is my target is varchar(32) but the IDs I am dealing with are made up of composite business keys of larger length. I need to be able to use the current business keys and generate unique 32 character equivalents in a deterministic way.

Appreciate any advice.

Thanks
Tom
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