unique id custom creator - help

I have a simple blog app that lets me create an entry with title and a body... real simple. In addition to the id that the database creates by default per each entry I would love to associate an unique id that uses 0123456789 and the 26 letters of the English alphabet.

So that means I have 36^7 unique ids right? assuming I want to keep each unique combination no bigger than 7 digits, Why? This is hypothetical. Can anyone help point me into the right direction? the intended result would be 00001, 00002, 00003 etc etc.

I was thinking to using a foor loop but a friend said that was a bad idea. A newbie here, I guess i dont have to point that out, anyone that can help me will be great. Thanks Oliver.

Quoting oliver torres <senortowers@gmail.com>:

I have a simple blog app that lets me create an entry with title and a body... real simple. In addition to the id that the database creates by default per each entry I would love to associate an unique id that uses 0123456789 and the 26 letters of the English alphabet.

So that means I have 36^7 unique ids right? assuming I want to keep each unique combination no bigger than 7 digits, Why? This is hypothetical. Can anyone help point me into the right direction? the intended result would be 00001, 00002, 00003 etc etc.

I was thinking to using a foor loop but a friend said that was a bad idea. A newbie here, I guess i dont have to point that out, anyone that can help me will be great. Thanks

irb(main):006:0> 50.to_s(36) => "1e"

50 base 36 = 1*36 + 14

HTH,   Jeffrey

Jeffrey L. Taylor wrote:

Quoting oliver torres <senortowers@gmail.com>:

the intended result would be 00001, 00002, 00003 etc etc.

I was thinking to using a foor loop but a friend said that was a bad idea. A newbie here, I guess i dont have to point that out, anyone that can help me will be great. Thanks

irb(main):006:0> 50.to_s(36) => "1e"

That works really well. If you'd like something more sophisticated, you could implement Doug Crockford's base-32 algorithm described at Base 32 . I've got some code for that algorithm at http://groups.google.com/group/techvalleyrb/msg/ac3ce4ae6620268a that I probably should put into a gem...

Best,