Number::RecordLocator(3pm)				User Contributed Perl Documentation				Number::RecordLocator(3pm)

NAME

       Number::RecordLocator - Encodes integers into a short and easy to read and pronounce "locator string"

SYNOPSIS

	   use Number::RecordLocator;

	   my $generator = Number::RecordLocator->new();
	   my $string = $generator->encode("123456");

	   # $string = "5RL2";

	   my $number = $generator->decode($string);

	   # $number = "123456";

DESCRIPTION

       "Number::RecordLocator" encodes integers into a 32 character "alphabet" designed to be short and easy to read and pronounce.  The encoding
       maps:

	   0 to O
	   1 to I
	   S to F
	   B to P

       With a 32 bit encoding, you can map 33.5 million unique ids into a 5 character code.

       This certainly isn't an exact science and I'm not yet 100% sure of the encoding.  Feedback is much appreciated.

   new
       Instantiate a new "Number::RecordLocator" object. Right now, we don't actually store any object-specific data, but in the future, we might.

   init
       Initializes our integer to character and character to integer mapping tables.

   encode INTEGER
       Takes an integer. Returns a Record Locator string.

   decode STRING
       Takes a record locator string and returns an integer. If you pass in a string containing an invalid character, it returns undef.

   canonicalize STRING
       To compare a Record Locator string with another you can do:

	 print "ALWAYS TRUE
" if $generator->decode("B0") == $generator->decode("PO");

       However, this method provides an alternative:

	 my $rl_string = $generator->encode(725);
	 print "ALWAYS TRUE
" if $generator->canonicalize("b0") eq $rl_string;
	 print "ALWAYS TRUE
" if $generator->canonicalize("BO") eq $rl_string;
	 print "ALWAYS TRUE
" if $generator->canonicalize("P0") eq $rl_string;
	 print "ALWAYS TRUE
" if $generator->canonicalize("po") eq $rl_string;

       This is primarily useful if you store the record locator rather than just the original integer and don't want to have to decode your
       strings to do comparisons.

       Takes a general Record Locator string and returns one with character mappings listed in "DESCRIPTION" applied to it. This allows string
       comparisons to work.  This returns "undef" if a non-alphanumeric character is found in the string.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

       No bugs have been reported.

       Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-number-recordlocator@rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at <http://rt.cpan.org>.

AUTHOR

       Jesse Vincent  "<jesse@bestpractical.com>"

LICENCE AND COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2006, Best Practical Solutions, LLC.  All rights reserved.

       This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See perlartistic.

perl v5.10.0							    2009-08-13						Number::RecordLocator(3pm)