12. OLFG Discussion Guides - Numbering Convention

Users of the Itracks OLFG software can choose the numbering convention that they will use for their questions. They enter the question "numbers" in a text field called "Label".

Users should be aware, however, of some peculiarities:

1. The Itracks software - not the user - will determine the order of the questions in the guide


2. The software does this by sorting the label field in ascending order with sometimes disconcerting results.

For instance, were a user to add a question labelled "A1" to a list of questions that already includes questions "1" through "9", question A1 would be appended to the list (because letters come after numbers).

Similarly, were the user to then add a question labelled "10" to the list above, that question would now find itself after question "1" - not after question "9" (because the single character "1" comes before the two characters "10", and both first characters come before "9").

This is called "literal sorting" (vs. "numerical sorting") and it can be an annoyance when the questions are not where you expect them to be in your online guide.

This is why I have adopted a "legal" numbering system from "01.00" through "99.99". It provides room for 10,000 questions, and they're always in the expected order.

There is another reason for adopting this system... more later.