>I am faced with the need to create (actually participate with) an alphabetic numbering system. The sequence is straight forward, and looks like this:
>
>AAAA
>AAAB
>.
>.
>AAAZ
>AABA
>
>etc.
>
>Really my only need is to be able to increment these codes by one, so I need a function that receives "DPRZ" and returns "DPSA". Get it?
>
>I am fairly confident that I can pound out the code to do this, but all of my ideas so far would take an enormous amount of code- can anybody think of a practical solution?

Hiya Erik,

Since everyone seems to be joining the fun, I can't resist a problem like this. Whaddya think of:

* FUNCTION IncrChar
* AUTHOR: George Tasker
* DATE: January 8, 1999 - 1:26 PM
* PURPOSE: 

LPARAMETER pcChars

LOCAL lcresult, lcrightmost, lcbase, lnlength
lnlength = LEN(pcChars)
lcrightmost = CHR(ASC(RIGHT(pcChars, 1)) + 1)
IF lnlength > 1
  lcbase = LEFT(pcChars, LEN(pcChars) - 1)
  IF lcrightmost > "Z"
    lcresult = IncrChar(lcbase) + "A"
  ELSE
    lcresult = lcbase + lcrightmost
  ENDIF
ELSE
  IF lcrightmost > "Z"
    lcresult = "AA"
  ELSE
    lcresult = lcrightmost
  ENDIF
ENDIF
RETURN lcresult

No loops, no muss, no fuss. It'll automatically icrease the length by one when it gets to "ZZZZ" or the like.