RE: Calling all math wizards

Yup. The TPA is calling the shots.

Paul Nelson
Cell 708-670-6978
Office 512-392-2577
nelsonp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jon Paris
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2007 10:53 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Calling all math wizards


On 20-Oct-07, at 10:58 AM, Paul Nelson wrote:

A client has posed an interesting problem. His employee master file
contains
a 2 digit company number, a 3 digit division number, and a 5 digit
employee
number. He needs to have some math done to generate a unique 7
digit number.

Does it have to be a number Paul? I can see how you could probably
build a unique character Id from this - but given that there are
10,000,000,000 possible employees I don't see how you can have a
calculated 1 to 1 relationship - it can only be done on a lookup
basis as others have noted.

If you use the numbers 0 - 9 and the alphabet (minus I and O to avoid
confusion) that gives you 34 possibilities per "digit" which is more
than enough to cover the range you need.

Jon Paris

www.Partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com