This function is very hard to replicate precisely in userland code, because if a session is already started, it will attempt to detect collisions using the new "validate_sid" session handler callback, which did not exist in earlier PHP versions.

If the handler you are using implements the "create_sid" callback, collisions may be detected there. This is called when you use session_regenerate_id(), so you could use that to create a new session, note its ID, then switch back to the old session ID. If no session is started, or the current handler doesn't implement "create_sid" and "validate_sid", neither this function nor session_regenerate_id() will guarantee collision resistance anyway.

If you have a suitable definition of random_bytes (a library is available to provide this for versions right back to PHP 5.3), you can use the following to generate a session ID in the same format PHP 7.1 would use. $bits_per_character should be 4, 5, or 6, corresponding to the values of the session.hash_bits_per_character / session.sid_bits_per_character ini setting. You will then need to detect collisions manually, e.g. by opening the session and confirming that $_SESSION is empty.

<?php
function session_create_random_id($desired_output_length, $bits_per_character)
{
    $bytes_needed = ceil($desired_output_length * $bits_per_character / 8);
    $random_input_bytes = random_bytes($bytes_needed);
    
    // The below is translated from function bin_to_readable in the PHP source (ext/session/session.c)
    static $hexconvtab = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ,-';
    
    $out = '';
    
    $p = 0;
    $q = strlen($random_input_bytes);
    $w = 0;
    $have = 0;
    
    $mask = (1 << $bits_per_character) - 1;

    $chars_remaining = $desired_output_length;
    while ($chars_remaining--) {
        if ($have < $bits_per_character) {
            if ($p < $q) {
                $byte = ord( $random_input_bytes[$p++] );
                $w |= ($byte << $have);
                $have += 8;
            } else {
                // Should never happen. Input must be large enough.
                break;
            }
        }

        // consume $bits_per_character bits
        $out .= $hexconvtab[$w & $mask];
        $w >>= $bits_per_character;
        $have -= $bits_per_character;
    }

    return $out;
}
?>