We are using SQL Server 2008 R2. I am doing all my work through Managment Studio. We Managed Test DB. Due to some primary key issue we reseeded our Test DB (some tables) identity columns to +20000000.(Max Identity now became from 60000+20000000).. Ok now after reseed we take DB backup and restore it to some other DB. After restore we lost whatever we reseeded +20000000..

I know there is no entry in that identity column from those number from 60000 to 20060000..and I wanted to know how should I prevent this problem happening. I don’t want to miss that identity from one Test DB to another Test DB.
Please let me know, if you need additional information

Thanks
- Jojo

Really thanks to ur explanation.
But in my case, I need to retrieve the top five rows from a table which has no gaps in its primary key, which is generated from a sequence.
can u help me to achieve this output..

thanks in advance,
Ditz

s_sl_header and s_sl_detail

bothe tables have serial = serial , in the s_sl_header i have serial,shop, date,
in s_sl_detail , serial, ticket (number)

i want to find missing ticket number and should results are like this

shop ,date,missing ticket
6222 , 01-01-2012, 4432

could you please help me to get the above results in sql2000.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I created a DEV database, where IDs started at 1.
I created a TEST database where IDs started at 10000
and in PROD the seed was 20000.

This was for a files table, which kept track of all uploaded files from an application.

Initially that was ok, so that there was a buffer between the different servers, and it was easy to tell what’s where and why.

But a day came when someone needed to copy prod data to Test. And then when testers began testing on the Test server, all the files in the 20000 range, started to be overwritten with the test files.

I tried to go back into the DB and reseed it again to like 11000, but it didn’t work, and kept on inserting in the 20000 range.

It would be great if there was a way to say ok, there are a bunch of skipped IDs, go and fill those first, and then skip over the existing ones and keep going.

* it forces you to recheck that all tables that depend on that column are linked trough a foreign key constraint and are properly defined in diagrams

* to finally solve the multiple cascade paths could lead to
cycle issue trough writing custom update procedure/triggers

*to rethink if certain decisions you made in the passed, based on the set of business constraints at that time, are still valid now

*to make column names over the database less ambigious

*hey my cropped identity fits in a smaller type (now that my relationships are all properly defined SSMS auto-adjusts the types in dependent tables)

*finally the traces of importing data out of various databases, tables, the work of others … are starting to fade, aahh a fresh start. i feel so clean, finally i can delete that useless foreign key column that points to a non-exisiting database
it starts to look as though i built it from scratch without the clutter of other co-developers
jada jada (getting emotional)

*BUT it remains utterly pointless none the less, pointless but fun!

If there is any thing please do update me …..

[email address removed due to privacy issue]

Deleted identity value is not used. There are some workarounds to get identity of deleted records. One is described here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186775.aspx

but that is not recommended for large tables as it degrade the performance of insert statements.

Regards,
Pinal Dave

i am not a regular reader but i have used ur tips and tricks for my knowledge.I am some confused about identity , that when i have 10 records in that i have deleted only one record that is 7 th record. then my identity no 7 will be missing for ever and even my identities are not in order .so will u let me know me how to reorder them .

Thank You,

Lets say we have a lookup table where identity field was tinyint rather than int. Lets say someone entered 250 values that are now not required.

Before now we delete those values and want to insert 10 new lookup values. But I will not be able to do so as I would have run out of numbers. Resetting the identity seed will allow me to enter my values.

This is just one example of where resetting identity seed may be helpful….. There may be other ones…

thank you

thank you very much

Thanks & regrads

Harishkumar.M

I just inherited a DB table that contains an ID column and an order number column that was not originally an Identity column. So, all records are unique on the ID PK column, but *should* also be unique on the order number as well…they are NOT.

Some records have a NULL order number and some order numbers are duplicated. The difficulty is in making the decisions of how to rectify these issues:

Can we delete the data if it is older? That is simple.

If not, how to make this an Identity column and still retain the existing order numbers for historical purposes? SQL Server 2005 doesn’t let you make an existing column IDENTITY: “You cannot modify an existing table column to add the IDENTITY property.”

How to find gaps (un-used numbers) around the same date range of the records with NULL or duplicate order numbers to try to use those to fix the bad records…we could simply use the next highest order number, but the users intuitively know the approximate date of the orders based on the order number and this would throw them off.

If anyone has suggestions for these real-world issues, I’d be interested in hearing them.

When we went to move this table from one database to another, the identity column was reseeded. This of course caused havoc with our data since records were being paired incorrectly.

Is there a way around this?