Re: Base utility?

>I need some help. I have to find a way to squeeze as many unique identifiers
>as I can into two positions. I also need it to increment easily. I've
>considered converting to hex, but it just doesn't provide enough identifiers
>within two positions.  Is there a  way to use a different base and simply
>add 1 to get the next ID?  How do I count from 00 to ZZ?
>
>base 10 = 00 thru 99 = 100 IDs  and   base 16(hex) = 00 thru FF = 256 IDs
>
>Tony
>


You obviously need to use base 36 = 1296 combinations (cycles through all
combinations of letters and numbers, from 00 thru ZZ).  If you add special
characters, and lower case, your combinations grow tremendously!

You'll probably have to develop your own technique for counting in base
36... I'd probably start with a table of 36 characters (0-9,A-Z) and keep
an index running from 1-36 for each position.

Actually, in 2 positions you actually have 256**2, or 65536 combinations.
However, a lot of these are NOT displayable characters.

--Paul E Musselman
PaulMmn@ix.netcom.com


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