Django package to generate random alphanumeric string

Django provides the function get_random_string() which will satisfy the alphanumeric string generation requirement. You don't need any extra package because it's in the django.utils.crypto module.

>>> from django.utils.crypto import get_random_string
>>> unique_id = get_random_string(length=32)
>>> unique_id
u'rRXVe68NO7m3mHoBS488KdHaqQPD6Ofv'

You can also vary the set of characters with allowed_chars:

>>> short_genome = get_random_string(length=32, allowed_chars='ACTG')
>>> short_genome
u'CCCAAAAGTACGTCCGGCATTTGTCCACCCCT'

There are many other ways to generate a unique id, though not necessarily an alphanumeric one:

1. The uuid module - generate a unique UUID using uuid1 or uuid4, e.g.

   >>> import uuid
   >>> my_uuid = uuid.uuid4()
   >>> my_uuid
   UUID('8e6eee95-eae1-4fb4-a436-27f68dbcb6d7')
   >>> str(my_uuid)
   '8e6eee95-eae1-4fb4-a436-27f68dbcb6d7'
   

2. The random module:

   >>> import random
   >>> import string
   >>> allowed_chars = ''.join((string.ascii_letters, string.digits))
   >>> unique_id = ''.join(random.choice(allowed_chars) for _ in range(32))
   >>> unique_id
   '121CyaSHHzX8cqbgLnIg1C5qNrnv21uo'
   

Or, if you're not fussy about the alphabet:

>>> unique_id = '%32x' % random.getrandbits(16*8)
>>> unique_id
'5133d2d79ce518113474d8e9f3702638'

From python 3.6, there is a secret module which has a specific method for generating safe random urls. It is the token_urlsafe method.