Unique IDs

[ruthcarlton]

I have 3 types of merchandise; shirts, hats, stickers. I would like each item to have a unique ID that follows the form

shirt 1, shirt 2....

sticker 1, sticker 2...

hat 1, hat 2

Is there a way to auto-enter that info?

I can get shirt 1, hat 2, shirt 3, sticker 4, by using a caluclation of "Item Description" & "Serial #", but that's not what I am trying to achieve.

Thanks.

[Fitch]

A fairly straightforward way to do that is to create 3 new files: hat numbers, shirt numbers, and sticker numbers. In each file make an auto-enter serial number text field.

Now you can make a script in your merchandise file something like:

If(Item Description = "hat")

. Perform script(external, hat numbers)

Else

. If(Item Description = "shirt")

. . Perform script(external, shirt numbers)

. Else

. . Perform script(external, sticker numbers)

. End If

End If

The external script in each file would create a new record, then you grab the serial number either by copying and pasting (the uncool way) or setting a global field to the number, then setting your merch. serial no. to the global (the cool way).

[Fitch]

I should be getting some sleep, but...

Another way to do this is to make a self-relation description::description, then make a script that sets the serial number to Max(description::serial number) + 1.