How to generate a UUIDv4 in MySQL?

MySQL’s UUID function returns a UUIDv1 GUID. I’m looking for an easy way to generate random GUIDs (i.e. UUIDv4) in SQL.

Answer

I’ve spent quite some time looking for a solution and came up with the following mysql function that generates a random UUID (i.e. UUIDv4) using standard MySQL functions. I’m answering my own question to share that in the hope that it’ll be useful.

-- Change delimiter so that the function body doesn't end the function declaration
DELIMITER //

CREATE FUNCTION uuid_v4()
    RETURNS CHAR(36) NO SQL
BEGIN
    -- Generate 8 2-byte strings that we will combine into a UUIDv4
    SET @h1 = LPAD(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 0xffff)), 4, '0');
    SET @h2 = LPAD(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 0xffff)), 4, '0');
    SET @h3 = LPAD(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 0xffff)), 4, '0');
    SET @h6 = LPAD(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 0xffff)), 4, '0');
    SET @h7 = LPAD(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 0xffff)), 4, '0');
    SET @h8 = LPAD(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 0xffff)), 4, '0');

    -- 4th section will start with a 4 indicating the version
    SET @h4 = CONCAT('4', LPAD(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 0x0fff)), 3, '0'));

    -- 5th section first half-byte can only be 8, 9 A or B
    SET @h5 = CONCAT(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 4 + 8)),
                LPAD(HEX(FLOOR(RAND() * 0x0fff)), 3, '0'));

    -- Build the complete UUID
    RETURN LOWER(CONCAT(
        @h1, @h2, '-', @h3, '-', @h4, '-', @h5, '-', @h6, @h7, @h8
    ));
END
//
-- Switch back the delimiter
DELIMITER ;

Note: The pseudo-random number generation used (MySQL’s RAND) is not cryptographically secure and thus has some bias which can increase the collision risk.