Moving WP install from local to live, what about wp_posts GUID?

Question

Done this before and i am still wondering what to do with the wp_posts => guid content, which has reference to http://localhost

But at wordpress.org documentation it clearly states:

Never, ever, change the contents of the GUID column, under any circumstances.

But as i understand it is just to unique identify your posts globally. But as more people would have http://localhost in their guid.

So can i safely replace http://localhost with http://example.com ?

regards

Answer 1

"GUID" stands for "Globally Unique Identifier" mainly used by feeds to tell if that specific post was shown on the feed before or not, even if you change domains.

When developing on local host and the moving to live (+1 just for that BTW) and no feed reader/burner has read your feeds and only if that is the case it's OK to change it and start fresh on your new live host.