>Hi everybody,
>
>I have an application that looks like it was converted from 2.6 at some point and then moved to VPM 6.0
>
>The tables are in the database, but not really properly normalized. The Orders table has OrdNo field (Numeric 7), which I believe is supposed to be a PK in this table. I'm not sure how exactly it was populated originally.
>
>The question is - how can I generate the unique Order No ? I don't know if it would be a good idea to introduce counter table to this existing application?
>
>Any ideas here? I've searched the whole project and I don't see a single INSERT command involving OrdNo field - it is probably done with APPEND BLANK and REPLACE.
>
>Thanks in advance.

What would be the trouble with having a counter table? Just keep the last number used, or the next number to use, for several sequences. One record for each sequence you need.

To assign the number in a multiuser environment, you don't know whether the current user will save or undo the record, or whether another user will save first. So you only assign the number when the user tries to save. If the save fails, undo everything (with a transaction).