Generating a unique key

[shweta]

Hi,

We take the email of the user as an input and need to generate a unique 10-character key from this email. The logic to generate the key should be such that the next time it is used the same key is generated for the same email address. The key can be alphanumeric, but at most 10 characters.

Any ideas, suggestions?

Thanks,
Shweta

 

[chiph]

You could store the email in a table with an auto-increment column in it. Key the table on Email address.

When adding a new address, you'd do a SELECT on it first to see if it already exists.

10 characters would give you room for about a 10 billion addresses, which should be sufficient

Chip H.

 

[shweta]

Thanks ChipH!

We decided to implement it using a similar solution...

-Shweta