Have you guys tried using the maxid tag at www.fusebox.org? Personally I
haven't had issues with identity or autonumber (when I used access). Of
course, I use scheduled backups so failure itsn't that big of a concern for
me. So far as moving access to SQL, the upsizing wizard in access 2000
works fine now.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dick Applebaum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2000 2:35 PM
Subject: RE: What are you using instead of IDENTITY?
> >If you use identity as a primary key
> >AND records may be deleted along the way thus leaving "gaps"
> >AND you ever have to rebuild your database (not restore from backups)
> >THEN you MAY be totally SOL. The reinsertion of the rows can cause the
> >Identity column to be corrupt with respect to what the original IDS were.
> >
>
>
> In SQL Server you can temporarily disable the Identity constraint and
> reinsert the old values into the identity field.
>
> I do this all the time, for backup/restore, restructuring a db, or
> moving from, say, Access Autonumber keys to SQL Server Identity
> keys...
>
> ... it's easy, and almost foolproof!
>
> as for gaps in the primary key, you get that with almost any choice:
>
> name; SSN; Employee #, Part#...
>
> Most enterprises don't reassign employee or part nos (at least not
> for many years) and you can't possibly hire all the people in the US
> (even the dead ones) to use SSN with out gaps.
>
> As for Celko's argument that it violates SQL theory, actually it supports,
it:
>
> rows are not supposed to have any order
>
>
> Everything I have been taught or read (with the excwption of Celko)
> suggests that an Identity field is ideal for a prinmary key:
>
> It is unique
>
> it is maintained by the db system
>
> it is not reassigned, if deleted
>
> it promotes/supports referential integrity
>
> it is independent of the data in the row
>
> it lends itself to compact and efficient indexing
>
> it allows you to do an insert and determination of the key in a single
> operation without the necessity to to validate that the key in unique
>
> it is, well, just slick!
>
> Even the FuseBox methodology simulates an identity field (MaxID) for
> those db systems that do not support it
>
>
> My 2 cents
>
> Dick
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
> Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
> To Unsubscribe visit
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/cf_talk or
send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with 'unsubscribe' in
the body.
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
To Unsubscribe visit
http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists&body=lists/cf_talk or send a
message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with 'unsubscribe' in the body.
