>Ah yes, I understand. That jogged my memory of when I first did the analysis on this. I remember *looking* for a value that would/could render an individual machine or installation unique. Maybe even something as wild as using SYS(3) in my apps setup wizard but there were other issues -- like reinstalling the software and a new sys(3) rendering the old records (potentially) inaccessible.
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>Thanks for the idea. I'll have to think about this somemore. If you have any more ideas, I'm all ears.
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>Ernie

You could use something similar to what is in Codebook. In the "Default Value" of a table field, call a function that generates the key. Make the key an integer value that can have a start/end range. Each call to this function increments the value (base 10, or base 62 or something like that) by one (the "current" value would have to be stored in a table). Set-up each station with a different range. Then when you merge these data sets you'll know all the keys are unique. You also have the added benefit of knowing where the information was generated (based on the range of the unique key).