How to create a short hash

[eluser]Michael Wales[/eluser]
Wow, talk about timing.

About a month ago I wrote an article entitled "Handling Forgotten Passwords" in which I discuss various methods of allowing a user to retrieve/reset a lost password. One of the common themes amongst all of these methods was an emailed verification/activation code - this also happened to be one of the most frequent questions I recieved.

Yesterday I posted an article "Generating Random Strings" which takes a 10-line function I originally suggested (to just generate the random string) to 9-line function, which generates the random string, checks it for duplication, and updates the user's record if it's valid.

Check it out - I'm sure both article will help.