UUID Regex Go Validator

What is UUID Regex?

In Go, validating strings that must follow a UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) format is common in backend systems, APIs, and database records. UUIDs ensure that every entry has a globally unique ID—especially important when systems scale or operate across multiple servers.

UUIDs are typically formatted like this:

xxxxxxxx-xxxx-Mxxx-Nxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

• x: Any hexadecimal digit

• M: UUID version (1–5)

• N: Variant (8, 9, a, or b)

  
  

A regex for validating UUIDs helps ensure that:

• The input is the right length

• The segments are correctly formatted

• The UUID version and variant are valid

UUID Regex Pattern in Go

To validate UUIDs in Go using regex, you can use:

^[0-9a-fA-F]{8}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[1-5][0-9a-fA-F]{3}-[89abAB][0-9a-fA-F]{3}-[0-9a-fA-F]{12}$

This pattern checks for:

• 8 hex digits

• 4 hex digits

• A version digit (1–5)

• A variant digit (8, 9, a, b)

• 12 final hex digits

How to Validate UUIDs in Go

Here’s a working Go example:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "regexp"
)

func isValidUUID(uuid string) bool {
    uuidRegex := regexp.MustCompile(`^[0-9a-fA-F]{8}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[1-5][0-9a-fA-F]{3}-[89abAB][0-9a-fA-F]{3}-[0-9a-fA-F]{12}$`)
    return uuidRegex.MatchString(uuid)
}

func main() {
    test := "3f2504e0-4f89-11d3-9a0c-0305e82c3301"
    fmt.Println("Is UUID valid?", isValidUUID(test))
}

Use Cases

• Assigning IDs in distributed databases

• Identifying API users or sessions

• Ensuring uniqueness in system logs or tokens

• Referencing files, messages, or records across systems

Pro Tips for UUID Validation

• UUIDs can be uppercase or lowercase—this regex supports both.

• Version 4 UUIDs are most common for random generation. You can customize the pattern to only match v4 by replacing [1-5] with 4.

• Always validate UUIDs before storing them in the database to prevent garbage data.

• Avoid using UUIDs for user-facing identifiers unless you format or mask them properly—they can be long and hard to read.

• Use Go’s regexp.MustCompile() instead of Compile() for static patterns—it’s faster and cleaner for runtime.

Combine with These Tools

Create full mock data flows by combining this validator with:

• API Key Generator: Assign secure access credentials alongside UUIDs.

• Phone Number Generator: Build realistic user profiles.

• Email Generator: Add email IDs to simulated user data.

• Username Generator: Complete fake profiles with randomized usernames.

• Address Generator: Pair UUIDs with user address data for testing.