Auto Increment

[Rich Rollock]

I set up a database with an auto increment number that when it reached 999 the next number came up 000.

I thought the field might not be wide enough so I increased the widith the number still & it came up 000. And... it kept being 000, I put in another 20-25 records, they ALL came up 000. All the same.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

ps. This Alpha 5 isn't as easy as it's cracked up to be. Building the database is easy enough, but the tricky stuff ... ooo OOO 000 Boy. It's tricky.

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Auto Increment

Rich,

I've bumped into this same oddity. The trick I've since learned is to start off with an initial seed that uses the available width of your field.

For example, if your field is Character Type, and 8 wide, seed the first record with

00000001

This way it won't roll over until

99999999

Using the same field specifications, if you start with
001

It will roll over at
999

-- tom

[CALocklin]

RE: Auto Increment

Another way of saying what Tom said is that an autoincremented character field will never have more characters than it started out with. So, even if your field width is 254, the autoinc value will never exceed 999 if the initial value starts with 3 characters such as "100" or "001".

Re: Building the database is easy enough, but the tricky stuff ... ooo OOO 000 Boy. It's tricky. Welcome to the database world. And it sounds like you've only just started to see the hard stuff. I think the hardest parts of building a good database are (a) learning the details of how someone else does their business so you can duplicate it and, hopefully, make it more efficient and (b) figuring out the technique(s) to get the database to do 'the fancy stuff' that makes it truly efficient. Writing the code is easy once you figure out exactly what needs to be done and how it can be accomplished - i.e., the table structures and sets required, the basic logic steps, checks and verifications that need to be done, and the special functions that may be needed. Another sign of a good database, in my opinion, is that new features can be added without restructuring/modifying what's already there - I hate doing things twice even if someone is willing to pay me for it.

[Rich Rollock]

RE: Auto Increment

Thanks for the tips. I am not sure how to add a new incremental field that I can stuff with a starting number of 0001 instead of 001. I sure don't want to go back and change every one of the records. In a database that I have been using for 20 years (Cornerstone), I can enter a starting value and have the database recompute the field. Can that happen in Alpha 5? I'll look and try to see. Thanks again. Rich

[Stephen Williams]

RE: Auto Increment

No need to redo any existing info.

1. Turn off auto increment in the field rules, make it user entered.

2. manually enter "000001000", or whatever the next number you want the next record to have, and save it.

3. Turn on auto increment again in field rules. Next record should be "000001001"

[Rich Rollock]

RE: Auto Increment

Thank you.

Rich