Quick question about WCA ID generation

[Tacodude78]

As far as I'm aware, the WCA id scheme is the year in 4 digits, the first 4 letters of the last name, and 2 digits of an index, a way of separating the people with the same last name who went to their first comp in the same year. But some really common last names (e.g. smith or chen) have more than 99 people join a competition in one year. So what happens if 100 people with the same surname compete in their first comp in the same year? What would the 100th person's id be?

While I'm asking questions about WCA ids, what about if one's last name is less than 4 letters?

I'm asking this because 1. I'm curious and 2. I'm programming something that matches for a WCA ID using this regex:

\d{4}[A-Z]{4}\d{2}

and I want to know if there are edge cases for this.

(Not sure if this goes in WCA Regs, Speedcubing Discussion, or here)

 

[Justincubes]

As far as I'm aware, the WCA id scheme is the year in 4 digits, the first 4 letters of the last name, and 2 digits of an index, a way of separating the people with the same last name who went to their first comp in the same year. But some really common last names (e.g. smith or chen) have more than 99 people join a competition in one year. So what happens if 100 people with the same surname compete in their first comp in the same year? What would the 100th person's id be?

While I'm asking questions about WCA ids, what about if one's last name is less than 4 letters?

I'm asking this because 1. I'm curious and 2. I'm programming something that matches for a WCA ID using this regex:

\d{4}[A-Z]{4}\d{2}

and I want to know if there are edge cases for this.

(Not sure if this goes in WCA Regs, Speedcubing Discussion, or here)

I have a friend with a last name with only three letters. The fourth letter in his wca id is the first letter of his first name. I believe it would be the same if the last name was two letters, where the wca id would have the last name and then the first two letters of the first name

 

[SkewbIsTheBestEvent]

I have a friend with a last name with only three letters. The fourth letter in his wca id is the first letter of his first name. I believe it would be the same if the last name was two letters, where the wca id would have the last name and then the first two letters of the first name

This is not at all what he is asking. He is asking if, for common last names more than 3 letters, the value of of the last two digits might exceed 99 if there are more than 99 people that share a last name that joined in the same year as that is the highest two digit number, so what would happen then?

 

[Tacodude78]

I think you're right (using "Li" as an example)

 

[Tacodude78]

This is not at all what he is asking. He is asking if, for common last names more than 3 letters, the value of of the last two digits might exceed 99 if there are more than 99 people that share a last name that joined in the same year as that is the highest two digit number, so what would happen then?

No, they answered a second question I asked

While I'm asking questions about WCA ids, what about if one's last name is less than 4 letters?

 

[OtaMota]

As regards to 3 letter names,

Take 'Lee' for example.

I think the way it works is that you put the first letter of the country after the 3 letters. So if they are from Canada, 2024LEEC01, or from America would be 2024LEEA01. Keep in mind I am not 100% sure this is correct.

View attachment 34553

What?

What if you checked their first names? The true answer is that the First Name characters are used if the last name is too short. There is nothing to do with the country

 

[Spencer131]

So what happens if 100 people with the same surname compete in their first comp in the same year? What would the 100th person's id be?

this is actually a very good point, and something that the wca needs to fix soon. I just checked the database, and we are getting very close to surpassing 100 for some cases:

• 2023CAST 100
• 2017ZHAN 100
• 2024ZHAN 99
• 2024WANG 99
• 2024CHEN 99
• 2023YANG 99
• 2023WANG 99
• 2023SMIT 99
• 2023SANT 99
• many more at 99

I looked in the wca code, and found this line. it basically validates that an ID has the following:

• start with a digit from 1 to 9
• followed by exactly 3 digits
• followed by exactly 4 uppercase letters
• end with exactly 2 digits

so looks like the code doesn't have a way of handling more than 100 yet. I will ask the wca about this

 

[precompsubwr]

If more than 100 people with the same last name compete then it goes to pretending the last name is 3 letters only

Take yiheng wang's wca id: 2019WANY36

He registered only after 2019WANG99 so it had to change the last name in the wca id to WAN, note that this is uncommon normally, also the fact that wang is the most common last name so this was bound to happen soon

Go to the persons tab and search up 2019WANY and you'll find over 60 people with first name starting with Y and last name wang who happened to go to a comp after the limit