Auto generate alpha numeric in VB.NET - sql-server

Question

I'm currently working on my project for which I used VB.NET 2019 and SQL server. I need to create a function which auto generates IDs.
I want my IDs to be like these: P001, P002, P003 etc. Can someone show me how to code it? Below is my code
Private Sub Form4_Load_1(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
BindData()
Dim data As String = "Data Source=LAPTOP-M8KKSG0I;Initial Catalog=Oceania;Integrated Security=True"
Dim con As New SqlConnection(data)
Try
If Con.State = ConnectionState.Closed Then
con.Open()
End If
Dim sql As String = "Select Max(PatientID) from Patient"
Dim cmd As New SqlCommand(sql, con)
Dim Max As String = cmd.ExecuteScalar
If Max > 0 Then
TextBox1.Text = Max + 1
Else
TextBox1.Text = "P01"
End If
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(Err.Description)
End Try
End Sub

Answer 1

You can try like this. Here 1 is an auto-generated number that may be an identity key column value from a table in SQL Server.
Dim number As Integer = 1
Dim numberText As String = "P" & number.ToString().PadLeft(3, "0")
Live demo
You can add a computed column like this in your table for auto-generating the sequences. This will reduce the chances of duplicate value runtime once more than one person will do the entry simultaneously.
Alter table Patient ADD PatientCode AS ('P' + Convert(Varchar(3),CONCAT(REPLICATE('0', 3 - LEN(PatientID)), PatientID)) )
To get the column value dynamically you can try the below code to generate function.
Private Sub GenerateSequnce()
Dim constring As String = "Data Source=TestServer;Initial Catalog=TestDB;User id = TestUser;password=test#123"
Using con As New SqlConnection(constring)
Using cmd As New SqlCommand("Select Top 1 ISNULL(TaxCode, 0) from Tax_Mst Order By TaxCode Desc", con)
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text
Using sda As New SqlDataAdapter(cmd)
Using dt As New DataTable()
sda.Fill(dt)
Dim maxNumberCode = dt.Rows(0)("TaxCode").ToString()
If (maxNumberCode = "0") Then
maxNumberCode = "1"
End If
Dim numberText As String = "P" & maxNumberCode.ToString().PadLeft(3, "0")
End Using
End Using
End Using
End Using
End Sub
Here the column TaxCode is int with identity constraint.
With the minor correction in your code, you can achieve this as shown below.
Dim data As String = "Data Source=LAPTOP-M8KKSG0I;Initial Catalog=Oceania;Integrated Security=True"
Dim con As New SqlConnection(data)
Try
If con.State = ConnectionState.Closed Then
con.Open()
End If
Dim sql As String = "Select ISNULL(Max(PatientID), 0) from Patient"
Dim cmd As New SqlCommand(sql, con)
Dim Max As String = cmd.ExecuteScalar
If (Max = "0") Then
Max = "1"
Else
Max = CInt(Max) + 1
End If
Dim numberText As String = "P" & Max.ToString().PadLeft(3, "0")
TextBox1.Text = numberText
Catch ex As Exception
MsgBox(Err.Description)
End Try
OUTPUT