Type of user ID in API responses

API
1

What is the underlying data-type of the _id property in responses involving the users Twitch API?

The Get User endpoint example implies the _id property is a number. However, the Get User by ID endpoint returns the ID as a string. Is this intentional, or is this a typo?

Are all Twitch user IDs strictly numeric data, or are some IDs an alphanumeric string? I’m curious about how this applies to stream/channel IDs as well.

TL;DR:
Should my application cache user IDs as strings or as unsigned integers?

2

The newer endpoints use strings so that’s probably what you should store them as. In the future some features may use GUIDs.

3

See also information about Snowflake ID’s from Twitter https://blog.twitter.com/2010/announcing-snowflake and https://dev.twitter.com/overview/api/twitter-ids-json-and-snowflake

Basically it’s a string.

4

You should treat all IDs as strings. You do not need to do math on them and they may in the future be non-numeric.

5

You may want to make sure you treat it properly as potentially an integer or string depending on language, but @DallasNChains has stated they’re moving to all strings

Twitch API Version Update Discussion & FAQ

6

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