unique-string generator

[bagullo]

Hi,

I was wondering if any of you has already created a unique-string generator
it cannot be just using date & time as it needs to work during run-time

I figured out that I can just increment an integer, but I was wondering if any of you has code to do the same in alphanumeric fashion (or just letters, for that matter), to get a shorter id

.. X,Y,Z,AA,AB,AC ... AZ, BA, BB, ... , ZZ, AAA, AAB, ... etc

i want to use them in shape names and so on, so the shorter the better

thanks!

[NeedForExcel]

If Alpha numeric is good, then why not increment A1? It wont change the Letter A but will give you Alpha numeric unique strings..

[buran]

it cannot be just using date & time as it needs to work during run-time

Can you elaborate more on this? What is the problem using time-stamp
On the other hand if it's shape names, it could be useful just to start with same common letters and then increment index number...

[bagullo]

Can you elaborate more on this? What is the problem using time-stamp
On the other hand if it's shape names, it could be useful just to start with same common letters and then increment index number...

Hi Buran,
then thing is that if I write two rows on run-time, 2 of them may be written in the same second, and thus ID is not unique anymore.
Regarding letters + number, it's one of the ways I am doing it already, I was just wondering about an elegant-looking piece of code to convert strings to number and vice-versa to increment them, in the same way of columns names in excel. (.. AZ, BA, BB, ... )

If Alpha numeric is good, then why not increment A1? It wont change the Letter A but will give you Alpha numeric unique strings..

what do you mean ? incement cell A1? or rather combine letter plus number as buran suggests?

Thanks!

[buran]

I see, I would definitely go for some common string + index number e.g. shp1, shp2, etc.
Depending on what you are doing it may turn out to be useful to loop trough all shapes (somewhere in the code) and just check what its name starts with and do something

[NeedForExcel]

what do you mean ? incement cell A1? or rather combine letter plus number as buran suggests?

Yes Exactly! You can do that..

[berlan]

If you mean to increment from cell A1, then here's an example:

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debug.print shown in the Immidiate window (Alt+G)

[NeedForExcel]

I am saying something like this. (Berlan's Code Edited)

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[bagullo]

thanks berlan & Needforexcel

[bagullo]

Well --

finally I did myself the piece of code I whished for. Not quite elegent, but it certainly does work.
i did it to work just with letters, but changing 26 for whatever number you want, and modifying the mapping funcions it can work as a hexadecimal conversor or change the base to whatever suits you

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numbersToLetter.xlsm