# Alphanumeric id **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [March 23, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/alphanumeric-id/132706 "2008-03-23T21:18:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![William\_Fawcett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@William\_Fawcett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/William_Fawcett)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/alphanumeric-id/132706/1 "2008-03-23T21:18:09Z")
I am working on a ticketing system, and the client has requested a special format for a ticket id the format would be alphanumeric with a 3 character client tag, date, then a incremental number for the day, for example ticket1 = ‘joe\_03232008\_00001’ ticket2 = ‘joe\_03232008\_00002’ ticket3 = joe\_03242008\_00001’ etc is there any way to get rails to allow custom formatted id’s? also, is this going to add alot of overhead? I can expect as many as 5000 tickets per day. Is indexing going to become a problem? BTW: I am working on a system that is coded in Rails 1.2.3, I can’t upgrade to 2.0 right now so the solution needs to be compatible. Thanks -Will ---
**Author:** ![William\_Fawcett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@William\_Fawcett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/William_Fawcett)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/alphanumeric-id/132706/2 "2008-03-24T02:35:06Z")
You want to be careful not to couple the id of the record to business logic. It is best for you to have another field to handle this; or just have a method that returns this ticket identifier you are after. ---
**Author:** ![William\_Fawcett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@William\_Fawcett](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/William_Fawcett)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 2:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/alphanumeric-id/132706/3 "2008-03-24T02:50:20Z")
On Sun, 2008-03-23 at 13:17 -0700, William Fawcett wrote: > is there any way to get rails to allow custom formatted id’s? also, is > this going to add alot of overhead? I can expect as many as 5000 > tickets per day. Is indexing going to become a problem? > > BTW: I am working on a system that is coded in Rails 1.2.3, I can’t > upgrade to 2.0 right now so the solution needs to be compatible. * * * make you life easy… have a primary key the standard numerical id field have a secondary key, assembled in whatever fashion you choose That way, you give the customer what he wants yet you preserve sanity… Craig