My answer is based on comment uniqid user comment but it uses openssl_random_pseudo_bytes function to generate random string instead of reading from /dev/urandom
function guid()
{
$randomString = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(16);
$time_low = bin2hex(substr($randomString, 0, 4));
$time_mid = bin2hex(substr($randomString, 4, 2));
$time_hi_and_version = bin2hex(substr($randomString, 6, 2));
$clock_seq_hi_and_reserved = bin2hex(substr($randomString, 8, 2));
$node = bin2hex(substr($randomString, 10, 6));
/**
* Set the four most significant bits (bits 12 through 15) of the
* time_hi_and_version field to the 4-bit version number from
* Section 4.1.3.
* @see http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4122#section-4.1.3
*/
$time_hi_and_version = hexdec($time_hi_and_version);
$time_hi_and_version = $time_hi_and_version >> 4;
$time_hi_and_version = $time_hi_and_version | 0x4000;
/**
* Set the two most significant bits (bits 6 and 7) of the
* clock_seq_hi_and_reserved to zero and one, respectively.
*/
$clock_seq_hi_and_reserved = hexdec($clock_seq_hi_and_reserved);
$clock_seq_hi_and_reserved = $clock_seq_hi_and_reserved >> 2;
$clock_seq_hi_and_reserved = $clock_seq_hi_and_reserved | 0x8000;
return sprintf('%08s-%04s-%04x-%04x-%012s', $time_low, $time_mid, $time_hi_and_version, $clock_seq_hi_and_reserved, $node);
} // guid