string compaction in PHP

shahryar

Hi,

I have around 18 - 20 characters long IDs and I need to compact them, so that I could physically put them on the equipments and for that I need to know about any built-in or any other algorithm/function to use.

The algorithm should generate unique strings for unique IDs and must compact the original string to 5-10 characters.

any help would be truly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

laserlight

The algorithm should generate unique strings for unique IDs and must compact the original string to 5-10 characters.

Whether what you ask is possible depends on the exact nature of the data.

What kind of data does your input strings consist of, and what kind of data can your output strings consist of?

shahryar

thanks for a very quick response.

an example of my unique ID is this :VARFSCWPTBLK****SADDS00

so it can basically contain digits (0 - 9) alphabets (A-Z and a-z) or asterisk (*).

Now, what I want the algorithm to do is to compact this ID and give me a compacted unique string for this unique ID, so that I could put that compacted string on my equipment and then later on when I need to lend the equipment out I'd just type the string (from the equipment) in and use the decoding algorithm to get the same ID i.e. VARFSCWPTBLK****SADDS00 back.
From then on I'll just extract the info from the DB by using my ID.

I hope that helps clarify what I need. If you have more questions please feel free to let me know.

Thanks again.

laserlight

then later on when I need to lend the equipment out I'd just type the string (from the equipment)

hmm... you're physically labelling your equipment?
At this point you may need to use say, unicode, or invent your own symbols and map them yourself. Basically, it is impossible to fit 18-20 ASCII characters into 5-10 ASCII characters and still maintain unique association.