<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><div>While all this is very true (c'mon, this should be a well documented pattern / anti-pattern somewhere on the internets) .. How about this one -- use a FONT that is optically meant for easy visual discrimination of letters and numbers. Bonus -- font is easily scannable for image recognition. EG: Automotive VINs. Maintaining upper case only helps too. </div><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br></div><div id="AppleMailSignature">OCR fonts have been out for years. We just have to get "label manufacturers" to put these kind of specs / requirements in the design doc prior to any label scanning.</div><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br></div><div id="AppleMailSignature">Alternative #2 -- use a high density digital coding (data matrix codes, Semacode) and then just use our smart phones to read and repurpose. Wait.. We all do have smart phones, right?</div><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br></div><div id="AppleMailSignature">Giant Mike </div><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br></div><div id="AppleMailSignature"><br><br>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Feb 10, 2016, at 8:07 AM, Brian Schenken <<a href="mailto:brian.schenken@gmail.com">brian.schenken@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr">It depends. The characters in serial numbers sometimes have a meaning - O could mean an item was assembled on production line O, etc. so you might have to change that logic a bit. Assuming that the characters are all meaningless, you'd still have a bit of work to do if you want the alphanumeric text to increment while excluding certain characters.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 6:34 AM, Leam Hall <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:leamhall@gmail.com" target="_blank">leamhall@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">+1, and lower case "ell". Depending on the font, uppercase "D" is often suspect on printed labels.<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
On 02/09/16 23:18, DJ-Pfulio wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
1 line of code. B and 8 should be avoided as well as S and 5 too.<br>
<br>
On 02/09/16 20:45, Pete Hardie wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
It's not a programmer failure - it's a requirements failure. Some<br>
marketeer or architect failed to specify<br>
"Serial number will not include letters I and O"<br>
<br>
<br>
On Tue, Feb 9, 2016 at 8:32 PM, Sean Kilpatrick <<a href="mailto:kilpatms@gmail.com" target="_blank">kilpatms@gmail.com</a><br>
<mailto:<a href="mailto:kilpatms@gmail.com" target="_blank">kilpatms@gmail.com</a>>> wrote:<br>
<br>
I know nothing of modern languages; I stopped learning how to program<br>
at Cobol, Algol, and Fortran.<br>
But I have a question spinning off this serial number: F9IANU000217.<br>
<br>
Given that only a few lines of code should be necessary to create serial<br>
numbers, how much more code would be needed to exclude upper case "I"<br>
and "O"?<br>
<br>
This is the first time I have ever seen an upper case "I" used in a<br>
serial number. The type face used for this serial number made it<br>
difficult to see that the third character was an "I" and not a "1".<br>
I have seen an upper case "O" used however, and that is even more<br>
stupid.<br>
<br>
For the record, the serial number above identifies an electronic device<br>
manufactured by a well-known company. It didn't work out of the box,<br>
and after an hour with tech support I was told to return it as<br>
defective.<br>
<br>
Which I will do.<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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