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## Autonumbering

It is often useful to automatically number attributes (for example, to set “`pinseq=`” attributes in bulk when editing a symbol, or to set components' “`refdes=`” attributes for a large capacitor bank). The autonumbering facility in gschem can be accessed with Attributes→Autonumber Text.

The “Autonumber text” window has two sections:

- The “Scope” section, at the top, is used to specify which attributes should be autonumbered.
- The “Options” section below controls how the numbering is carried out.

### Choosing attributes to number

In the “Search for” field, you should enter the attribute pattern to search for. You can enter wildcards here: “`*`” matches any number of characters, and “`?`” matches any single character. For example, if you enter “`refdes=X*`”, it will match components named “`X1`”, “`X40`”, “`X302`”, etc.

The “Autonumber text in” menu controls where autonumbering looks for attributes to modify. If “Selected objects” is chosen, only the objects that are currently selected will be changed; with “Current page”, the whole page will be autonumbered. If “Whole hierarchy” is chosen, all open pages will be renumbered.

If some numbers are already in use, autonumbering will skip them. You can control where autonumbering looks for numbers to skip using the “Skip numbers found in” menu, which has the same options as the “Autonumber text in” menu described above.

If “Overwrite existing numbers” is enabled, all attributes found that match the pattern given in the “Search for” field will be renumbered; otherwise, only those that aren't already numbered will be changed.

### Controlling number assignment

The “Starting number” sets the first number that autonumbering will try to assign. For example, to renumber a page with component numbers `U100`, `R101`, etc., set the “Starting number” to 100. The “Sort order” controls what order autonumbering assigns numbers.

If the “Remove numbers” option is enabled, then attributes have their numbers reset to “`?`” (for example, “`R10`” becomes “`R?`”).