Greetings.

I'm not a mathematician and could be totally wrong here, but....

Case 1: A..Z, a..z, and 0..9
Case 2: A..Z and 0..9 ?

17 characters from the above cases require:
case 1 has 62^17 (2955688905823059073916326510592) possibilities.
case 2 has 36^17 (    286511799958070431838109696) possibilities.

case 1 needs 102 bits to be totally represented
case 2 needs  88 bits.

You have 72 bits (9 * 8). I don't think it'll go without eliminating
some possibilities. Any letters or digits never used? ( You can have at
most 18 characters still fit it into 9 bytes "losslessly")

Good luck.

Travis Howerton
Pharmacy Computer Services, Inc.
541.476.3139 x233
[log in to unmask]
(change "f" in farm to "ph")

----- Original Message -----
> I have a situation where I need to fit 17 ASCII alphanumeric
characters into 9
> byte field and must still be a ASCII alphanumeric representation.
Does
> anyone know of a good  algorithm to use to solve this problem or a web
site to
> get me going?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Kimber Renk
> HMO Nebraska
> Email: [log in to unmask]