# Generating sequence number (for filename)

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/generating-sequence-number-for-filename/317493>\
**Category:** programming\
**Created:** [December 22, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/generating-sequence-number-for-filename/317493 "2010-12-22T13:51:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Butters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Butters](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/Butters)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2010, 1:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/generating-sequence-number-for-filename/317493/1 "2010-12-22T13:51:36Z")

</div>

Got another issue…

I’ve made a form that allows users to upload images to the webserver and then stores the URL in a database to be recovered later (to show images on a page).

The code i’m using generates a random number for the filename, but the trouble is that since it’s random, it sometimes overwrites an existing file on the server when you upload a new one, messing it all up.

How can I get it to generate a sequence number on upload, rather than a random?

I’m using this code to generate the random number:

```php
$rand= rand(0, 1000);
$image_nameA=$rand.'.'.$extension;

```

Thanks! 🙂