### Generating the Interface UUID

Interfaces, like most other objects and entities in DCE, are identified by associating each one with a 128-bit universal unique identifier (UUID). An interface's UUID serves to identify it far and wide throughout DCE. Every interface in a DCE application must have a UUID assigned to it.

When you define a new interface, you must generate a UUID for it. Consequently, the first step in developing an interface definition is to run the uuidgen utility to generate a UUID for the interface.

Typically, you run the uuidgen command with the -i option when generating an interface UUID. The command line has the following syntax:

uuidgen -i > your_interface_name.idl

where your_interface_name is the name you have given your interface, and .idl is the suffix that all interface definitions use by convention. The uuidgen utility generates a file named your_interface_name.idl, that contains a skeleton of an interface definition and includes the newly generated UUID for the interface. See the OSF DCE Application Development Guide - Core Components for more information about the contents of this skeleton file. Refer to the uuidgen(1rpc)reference page in the OSF DCE Command Reference for a complete description of uuidgen .

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