Is 256 a safe max length for a user_id?

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1

I’m creating an index in my DB for the Auth0 user_id:
{identityProviderId}|{UserIdFromIdentityProvider}

I’m using Facebook, Instagram, and Google as providers. 256 should be long enough, right?

3

I guess so but let me check with the team whether we have any official guidance on that front!

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4

Thanks! It’s an index field, so I’m trying to get it as short as possible, but without potential truncations.

5

I’m guessing a length as low as 64 might even be acceptable, but I suppose it all depends on the values coming back from the identity providers. I’m trying to strike a balance between efficiency and future-proofing. I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot by having an index field length that is too short to hold a potentially long value.

6

Sure! Let me confirm that with the team!

7

I managed to get some info back. So basically we don’t have any public guidance on that front however on the not official side of things :smiley: we suggest 32 characters random uuid.

8

I think you may misunderstand me. I’m not asking for what I should use for an ID. Let me re-frame the question.

For social connections, Auth0 provides a user_id in the form of {identity provider identifier}|{user identifier from identity provider}. For example, a user_id returned for an Instagram account looks like instagram|554106952, and a user_id returned for a facebook account looks like facebook|10157866690664421. As I understand it, these are the unique IDs of users in the Auth0 system.

What I’m asking is: what is a safe database field length for storing these values? Assume that I may add new identity providers in the future. Right now, I’m only using Google, Facebook, and Instagram. But I may add more in the future. So, how long should that field be to accommodate future values. 2 character uuid doesn’t make sense, because the values I’m being passed from Auth0 ae not uuid’s.

9

If a facebook user_id is 26 characters long, I can’t imagine that any other provider will be much longer than that. So I’m guessing 64 or 128 will probably always be enough. I’ll assume that for now.

10

gotchya now… yep I think you can move with that!

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