Generate a Unique Series of Values with Earmark

The Earmark Laravel package by Brian LaVallee generates values in a unique and customizable series:

A Laravel package to earmark sequential values in a series and eliminate any gaps in the series when values are unset. Allowing for reusable values.

It can be used to fetch the next value (or array of values) to be used in an application. Database locking prevents duplicate values from being returned.

Here’s some basic usage examples from the package’s readme:

First, you can get and unset (for reuse) values:

$serial = Earkmarked::get(); // Returns: '2010'
Earkmarked::unset($serial);

You can also specify the number of values to return:

// Returns: ['2011', '2012', '2013']
$serial = Earkmarked::get(3);
Earkmarked::unset($serial);

A more advanced example, including configurable variables:

// Earmark(prefix, suffix, padding, min, max)
$earmark = new Earmark('ZULU', null, 10, 5000, null);
 
// Returns: 'ZULU0000005000'
$earmark->get();
 
// Returns: ['ZULU0000005001', 'ZULU0000005002', 'ZULU0000005003']
$earmark->get(3);

The readme explains the nuts and bolts of how it works, so I’d recommend checking out the full readme and source code on GitHub at poing/earmark.

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