I’m studying the Loebner Prize contest rules, regarding the LPP, and I’m having some difficulty with understanding just how the required sub-directories are to be created. Specifically, I’m trying to work out how the sequence numbers are determined. The rules state:

“To simulate a key press the entry program must create a sub-directory within the communications directory with the following format:
“sequence_number.key press-name.extension”

a. Where sequence_number is unique and monotonically increasing both lexically and numerically.”

Ok, fine, as far as it goes, except that I’m apparently not understanding properly exactly what this means. I’m pretty sure that I get “monotonically”, which I’m interpreting as “One way”, or constantly increasing. And “numerically”, which is self evident. But in my mind, “lexically” refers to words, and I’m dealing with a sequence number. I’m pretty good at seeing the concrete within an abstract form, and I’m also fairly competent in deducing patterns within numeric chains, or sequences, but the example given is throwing me for a loop. In cases such as these that I’ve experienced in the past, it’s been, largely, something so simple that I’ve missed it because I was too close to the problem. I’m fairly certain that this is the case once again. So my question is: What am I missing? If anyone has some insight into this quandary, I’ll happily listen.

I actually have a few questions here, but I want to try to keep them in separate posts, so as not to lose any.

Second question: Under what circumstances would the entry program actually “delete” any of the created sub-folders? According to the rules I’m reading:

“Communications shall be by means of the creation, detection, and deletion of sub-directories within the specified communications directory.”

I really want to get this right on the first try, so information of this sort would come in handy, wouldn’t you say?

I’m sorry. I found this one on my own. Oops?

numerically 10 > 9
lexically 9 > 10

therefore 09 not 9

Ah. I understand now. Thanks very much, (which is better, Dr. Loebner or Hugh?)

I wasn’t thinking about the fact that, while the sequence is numeric in nature, it’s also a string, which is technically a “word”. I told you it was something simple. Perhaps this is an indication that I should not be thinking about this stuff at 2AM.