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# VZMacMachineIdentifier

A unique identifier for a VM.

```
class VZMacMachineIdentifier
```

## Overview

This value uniquely identifies a virtual Mac hardware instance. Two VMs running concurrently shouldn’t use the same identifier.

When serializing the VM to disk, you can preserve the identifier in a binary representation by serializing the data in the `VZMacMachineIdentifier`.[`dataRepresentation`](/documentation/Virtualization/VZMacHardwareModel/dataRepresentation) property. Conversely, you can recreate the identifier with [`init(dataRepresentation:)`](/documentation/Virtualization/VZMacMachineIdentifier/init(dataRepresentation:)) from the binary representation.

You can compare the contents of two identifiers with <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/ObjectiveC/NSObject-swift.class/isEqual(to:)>.

## Topics

### Creating a machine identifier

[`init(dataRepresentation:)`](/documentation/Virtualization/VZMacMachineIdentifier/init(dataRepresentation:))

Create a machine identifier described by the specified data representation.

[`init()`](/documentation/Virtualization/VZMacMachineIdentifier/init())

Creates a new unique machine identifier.

### Machine data representation

[`dataRepresentation`](/documentation/Virtualization/VZMacMachineIdentifier/dataRepresentation)

Returns the opaque data representation of the machine identifier.


---

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