How to generate a random serial number

[eluser]Federico Baña[/eluser]
if you use uniqid you can save the call to the database...

another solution could be, assuming you generate one serial key per user:

Code:

$username = $this->session->userdata('username');
$salt = 'whatever_you_want';
$serial = md5($salt . $username); // your unique serial key (and the only serial key this user will ever have)

or yet another:

Code:

$unique = uniqid() . uniqid();
$and32chars = md5($unique);

hope this is useful