JavaScript code for generating Firebase Push IDs

generate-pushid.js

/**
 * Fancy ID generator that creates 20-character string identifiers with the following properties:
 *
 * 1. They're based on timestamp so that they sort *after* any existing ids.
 * 2. They contain 72-bits of random data after the timestamp so that IDs won't collide with other clients' IDs.
 * 3. They sort *lexicographically* (so the timestamp is converted to characters that will sort properly).
 * 4. They're monotonically increasing.  Even if you generate more than one in the same timestamp, the
 *    latter ones will sort after the former ones.  We do this by using the previous random bits
 *    but "incrementing" them by 1 (only in the case of a timestamp collision).
 */
generatePushID = (function() {
  // Modeled after base64 web-safe chars, but ordered by ASCII.
  var PUSH_CHARS = '-0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';

  // Timestamp of last push, used to prevent local collisions if you push twice in one ms.
  var lastPushTime = 0;

  // We generate 72-bits of randomness which get turned into 12 characters and appended to the
  // timestamp to prevent collisions with other clients.  We store the last characters we
  // generated because in the event of a collision, we'll use those same characters except
  // "incremented" by one.
  var lastRandChars = [];

  return function() {
    var now = new Date().getTime();
    var duplicateTime = (now === lastPushTime);
    lastPushTime = now;

    var timeStampChars = new Array(8);
    for (var i = 7; i >= 0; i--) {
      timeStampChars[i] = PUSH_CHARS.charAt(now % 64);
      // NOTE: Can't use << here because javascript will convert to int and lose the upper bits.
      now = Math.floor(now / 64);
    }
    if (now !== 0) throw new Error('We should have converted the entire timestamp.');

    var id = timeStampChars.join('');

    if (!duplicateTime) {
      for (i = 0; i < 12; i++) {
        lastRandChars[i] = Math.floor(Math.random() * 64);
      }
    } else {
      // If the timestamp hasn't changed since last push, use the same random number, except incremented by 1.
      for (i = 11; i >= 0 && lastRandChars[i] === 63; i--) {
        lastRandChars[i] = 0;
      }
      lastRandChars[i]++;
    }
    for (i = 0; i < 12; i++) {
      id += PUSH_CHARS.charAt(lastRandChars[i]);
    }
    if(id.length != 20) throw new Error('Length should be 20.');

    return id;
  };
})();

Line 48 is a buffer underflow when the random bytes are zzzzzzzzzzzz (either randomly, or due to the same-millisecond increment behavior). It will attempt to increment lastRandChars[-1]. In JavaScript, this will create a property on the object with key -1 and value NaN, but in other languages, it could cause far more insidious behavior.

In C, I chose to do this (rather than throw an error), but in your JS code, throwing an error seems more consistent with how other parts of it work.

// Prevent buffer underrun on overflow (when incrementing "zzzzzzzzzzzz")
// Warning: If this gets skipped, the id is no longer guaranteed to be unique,
// but most likely will be for quite awhile (it depends on where the random
// value for this millisecond started in the range).
if (i >= 0) {
    lastRandChars[i]++;
}

Itsok