alphanumeric number generator

[cameron]

I need to generate 5 million unique codes for a text to win job.
has anyone done this? and how did you do it?

cheers

[Jezza]

Without any more info to go on, I would imagine this would be accomplished on press. Any one else?

[seetomtype]

Ya, you could definately do it on press. I'd get a tech to do a PM first though.

[Dannigd]

We do scratch offs all the time. My husband writes a code and generates data for it. We never do it on the press. Give me more information and I can check with him on exactly how he would do it.

[cameron]

the codes have to be unique alphanumeric like this sort of thing
M6YKX305U1EU
T44GR17DB7G0
X9THPVTDKY72
Y7743AGKPSMO
4QAMDZNNXP0U

they then get digitally overprinted on collect card that the public get in pagkaging then the sms or enter on the web to win prizes and earn points
i can generate the codes but i then need to scan the code to remove letters and numbers that the public can get wrong on the entry procces ie 1 I G 6 and things like that, also need to scan all code to make sure that there is no dups

cheers

[Jezza]

Hmm, so what we're looking at is some kind of variable data, a bit like a mail merge type thing in principle. So it could be accomplished via an applescript and/or XML.

I know what's possible but not sure how to accomplish it. Over to someone else I think

[cameron]

thanks
is looks simple but, it's the add ons that add to the fun

[afrazier]

I'm dannigd's husband. (Hi honey! )

Most of the time for jobs like this I'll be tapped to write a program that generates the codes. However, one route you could take would be to use a password generator, like APG. It's got options to generate password using restricted character sets. To de-dupe, pipe the output through sort and uniq (just generate enough extras to ensure that after de-duping you have enough codes), then re-shuffle (if desired).

If you eliminate 1IG60OQ2Z5S, that's 25 characters available per position. You'd only need 5 characters to generate 5 million codes. 6 characters allows for 244 million codes, which should be enough to prevent guessing -- you'd be using just over 2% of the available space.

[Jezza]

That's sme maths!

[born2print]

Originally Posted by afrazier

I'm dannigd's husband. (Hi honey! )

Most of the time for jobs like this I'll be tapped to write a program that generates the codes. However, one route you could take would be to use a password generator, like APG. It's got options to generate password using restricted character sets. To de-dupe, pipe the output through sort and uniq (just generate enough extras to ensure that after de-duping you have enough codes), then re-shuffle (if desired).

If you eliminate 1IG60OQ2Z5S, that's 25 characters available per position. You'd only need 5 characters to generate 5 million codes. 6 characters allows for 244 million codes, which should be enough to prevent guessing -- you'd be using just over 2% of the available space.

Brilliant!