Increment Rule

An increment rule is used to specify the pattern in which incrementing characters are replaced.

The rule can consist of a series of individual characters, or two periods (..) that indicate a sequence of numbers or letters. The rule may also consist of two parts, separately defined within square brackets. These two parts represents the Major and Minor updates to the key, and are usually used along with the Revision attribute.

Example:
  • 0...9

    All digits

  • A....Z

    All uppercase items

  • 0...9a....z

    All digits followed by all lowercase letters

  • 0....9A....F

    The hexadecimal system

  • 02468

    Even digits only

  • [A....Z][0....9]

    A Major and Minor increment mask, designated by the use of square brackets. The Major part uses all uppercase digits, and the Minor section uses all digits.

The minimum and maximum values specify the valid range for each incrementing character, according to the increment rule.

These values are specified by defining the required minimum or maximum values for each mask character, for example, DOC-0000 and DOC-3999 can be the minimum and maximum values for the mask DOC.