At 12:11 PM 5/11/2003 +0000, you wrote:

>Hi Set,
>
>many thanks. This helps me a lot. But there is another problem,
>nearly the same as the one I had, but I cant use a generator there,
>cause this is a table, from a database, where another software is
>working with, so I cant change the field-stucture.
>
>tablename : documents
>the unique index is : doctype, docart, posnr
>
>before inserting a record, i need to start a sql, cause a user in the
>other software could inserted a new record :
>select max(posnr) as maxvalue from documents
>where doctype = 'L'
> and docart = 'A';
>
>then I have to increase this value and insert a new record.

You should *not* be doing this kind of thing in a multi-user system. Get
*both* applications fixed so that this doesn't have to occur in either case.

>The problem is the same. User A, and User B insert a record in table
>documents.
>
>Is there maybe anyway a change to work with a generator, or what
>could I do else?

It can be done, but it is not simple. The idea is to maintain a table, fed
by a generator, that is used for allocating ticket numbers that already
exist. It is NOT as good as using generators directly, as it causes
bottlenecks as your current technique *ought to*. But it is safe from the
point of view of uniqueness.

I can explain it but I feel we are trying to swim in cement if we don't
know how that other software takes care of the multi-user issue.

Helen