[plt-scheme] UUID Question

I've implemented RFC 4122 Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs) and have an
interesting dilemma. Two of the types of UUIDs are generated based on a
namespace UUID and name using either MD5 (a type 3 UUID) or SLA-1 (a type 5
UUID) hashes. I implemented the type 3 and type 5 UUIDs in accordance with
RFC 4122 - in particular, my result for the type 3 example in the RFC
matches the result I get; there is no type 5 example. Then I checked it
against the Python implementation and got a different answer. After a bit of
a search I found a post by the original author of the Python code that said
he felt the RFC implementation was in error. Anyway, the Unix uuid command
matches the Python answer, but I have found others (e.g., Apache and PHP
that match (or did match) the RFC). For the curious, the difference has to
do with byte-swapping to/from network order.

I've implemented type 3 and type 5 UUIDs both ways and have separate calls -
for example, make-uuid-3 and make-uuid-3*. For now, I have make-uuid-3
matching the Unix uuid command and make-uuid-3* matching the RFC. The same
goes for type 5 UUIDs.

The first question is whether there are any web gurus on the mailing list
that might know which really is the correct/preferred implementation. I
haven't found any addenda or anything for RFC 4122 that suggests that the
IETF considers the RFC to be in error. On the other hand, the Unix and
Python implementations are widely used.

The second question is whether to two functions as described above or a
single function with an optional argument to specify which of the two
alternatives to use. My initial decision is to use two functions as above,
where the Unix uuid values are the unstarred version. So, make-uuid-3
returns the same value as the Unix 'uuid -v3' command and make-uuid-3*
returns the same value as the RFC reference implementation. [My assumption
being that the Unix uuid version is the more wide used, but I may be totally
wrong.]

I do feel I should provide both, since both seem to exist 'in the wild' and
the purpose of type 3 and 5 UUIDs is to be repeatable.

For those interested, the package also produces type 1 (time-based) and type
4 (random) UUIDs.

Doug
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