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>Most programmers end up using something on this order. I have a different situaton where I have independent installations that may want to merge their data. I use SYS(3) to generate keys. One draw back is the number is nonsense and sometimes you would like to know the order records were added for audit purposes. Do you know of other draw backs to using sys(3)?
Hi,
I don't use it at all so don't know much about it. It ensures a unique filename, and use 8.3 format giving the name part. I know that it doesn't give a unique name on a fast computer. And I don't know what it uses to generate it (just check if one already exist on the current dir ???). If it doesn't use datetime somehow then the order wouldn't be reliable. In fact in a nonbuffered table recno() itself give the order. In a buffered table sys(2015) could do it if all workstation times were preset precisely. I even use sys(2015) to generate a unique filename

munique = sys(2015) 
mfilename = "T"+substr(munique,1,7)+"."+substr(munique,8)

Cetin