[SOLVED] Using md5(or md4?) to create a unique hash, help please

[physaux]

Hey guys, I want to create new pages on my site. However, I want the pages to be like so:

 

www.mysite.com/.../989said9asdua9s-the-title-of-my-page.html

 

So I am trying to create a url with the title words in it.

But I want to take precautions incase I end up making 2 pages with the same name.

So i want the random number part (989said9asdua9s) to be unique for every title string.

 

Would this work:

check if the title is unique, if it is then the url is just:

md4/5(title).urlencode(title).".html";

If the title is not unique, I add some random string/numbers to the title inside of the md4/5, and the url is:

md4/5(title.randomString()).urlencode(title).".html";

//I would make randomstring as a function.

So I would loop this until the url is unique. Does that sound like a good plan? or could something go horribly wrong that I do not see.

 

I don't want the random string to be too long, and so is md4 or md5 right for this?

 

or does anyone have any other suggestions? thanks!!

 

EDIT: incase of appending random strings, I could just append something unique to the page, such as it's ID or whatever... So the question becomes, is md5/4 good for this? Is this a good idea? Is there a better way?

[JonnoTheDev]

Why are you creating static pages? Is the content not stored in a database?

If so you only require 1 file. A mod-rewrite, can include the page name in the url. Use the primary key as the page identifier i.e

 

/page-title/23.html

/another-page-title/24.html

 

Both pages are index.php?id=

[physaux]

Can you explain what you mean exactly when you say I only need one file?

 

Say each of my files can be generated from a "pageid" from a database, I thought I had to create many different pages like this:

 

<?php
$pageid = 8;
include("genericpage");
?>

 

How do I do it like you are saying?

[physaux]

Nevermind, google got my back on this 1

 

thanks for telling me about mod-rewrite!