Search options for Number field treat it as a string, not a number

[Alex Aycinena]

>
> Michael,
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Michael Hendry <hendry.michael at gmail.com>
> To: Fred.Bone at dial.pipex.com
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 14:56:18 +0100
> Subject: Re: Search options for Number field treat it as a string, not a
> number
>
> On 11 May 2013, at 14:13, Fred Bone <Fred.Bone at dial.pipex.com> wrote:
>
> > On 10 May 2013 at 8:55, Michael Hendry said:
> >
> > [...]
> >> Can anyone suggest a more reliable way of determining the highest number
> >> used in the Number field of any register?
> >
> > Why doesn't sorting on the number field do what you need?
> >
>
>
> Thanks, Fred.
>
> I've found that the answer is to use the General Ledger - as suggested by
> Derek Atkins.
>
> I should perhaps have made it clear that I wanted to find the highest
> number which has already been used - in any of the registers, not just the
> one I'm about to use for an entry.
>
> As I pointed out in my response to Derek's suggestion, this immediately
> showed up a duplicate transaction number (my error), but also revealed a
> problem in the use of the + sign to generate the next transaction number.
>
> I'll need to do some experiments on this, but I think that GnuCash must
> keep track of the last number used in a transaction in any given register -
> it doesn't check all the numbers and find the largest one each time.
>

Each account keeps track of the latest number used in it's register and
when the '+' is entered in the register when focus is in the 'num' field,
it enters the next number, which you can then change if you want. This is
strictly intended to be a data entry convenience for things like check
numbers (since you can have multiple checking accounts, each with its own
number sequence, it needs to be account based). When a new transaction in
entered within a register, that number in the account is replaced by the
one just entered to be incremented for the next transaction. These numbers
are not system-wide, like your use case, but account specific. But since
the field is just a string, you can enter anything useful to you, like your
system-wide number scheme; it is just that you have to keep track of the
nubers yourself.


>
> In the screenshot, you'll see that transaction 117923 was a transaction
> between my bank account and a credit card account. This was done at the end
> of the last reconciliation of this account, and I suspect the General
> Ledger is invoked for this transaction.
>
> This would mean that as far as the General Ledger was concerned, the
> highest transaction number used was 117923, and the + sign would move on to
> 117924, ignoring subsequent transactions not posted through the General
> Ledger.
>
> Michael
>
>
>
Alex