Re: sorting invoice numbers by numerical order

[Luke <..hidden..>]

This discussion has reminded me of an annoying quirk.  Well, having to 
compensate for it last night also reminded me of it.

<?lsmb YYYY ?><?lsmb MM ?>00001

as the default, might get me:

20100100001
20100100002
20100100003
20100200004
20100200005

Whereas I would expect:

20100100001
20100100002
20100100003
20100200001
20100200002

This has frustrated me since SQL-Ledger.  I have to manually reset the 
defaults at the start of any period for which I use a variable string of 
this type.

One way to handle it, to cover various use cases, might be with a 
variable which specifies lowest sequence number, with a certain maximum 
digit count to be left-padded.  Example:

<?lsmb YY ?><?lsmb mm ?><lsmb lowestnumber 5 ?>

Would generate:

100100001
100100002
100200001
100200002

That way, the portion that is in the lowest sequence, will always use the 
lowest available sequence number in the context of the whole string.

The obvious first problem with this idea, is execution time, as it 
requires a query to determine the next available sequence number.
The second problem is the fact that sequences may include things other 
than numbers.

The first seems simple enough: if you use this method, expect longer 
execution times when generating numbers.

The second, however, would seem significantly problematic.  A single 
hyphen, or leading 0 (0902-00001) would break the functionality.

Luke