I have set some script that inserts data from an XML file into a SQL database. I am getting the following error.
Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'fighterID', table 'MMA Database.dbo.FIGHTERStemp'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails.
I have fighterID set as the primary key and will not allow NULLS. My intention is to have it number each row as they are inserted. I found one answer that advises to modify the column properties to be the identifier. However it will not let me adjust the columns properties without dropping and adding the table again.
I can do that - but what is the SQL syntax to set the identity specification settings? Am I going about this the right way?
It's pretty simple, just set the field with datatype INT (integer) and follow it with keyword IDENTITY. You can include the seed and increment values; e.g. start at 1, increment by 1, or just use the keyword IDENTITY for a 1,1 default.
CREATE TABLE MMA (FighterID INT IDENTITY (1,1), FighterInfo VARCHAR(MAX))
While inserting data into Primary key you can check the previous max id value and then increment it to next value before you insert a new row.
In SQL, you need to drop table before altering its specification. You can do this by taking backup into temp table then drop your main table and then re insert data from temp table.
Related
I have a table filled with data and one of the columns - TrackingNumber - is an integer value. I have gotten a request to change it to auto-increment and to have it start the identity seed at 1000000. I know that I cannot alter a column to be an identity column in an existing table with data, so I have two options: either create an entirely new table and then move data from the old table into that new table or add an new identity column and update it with data from the old column.
The problem is that I need to retain all the existing values in column TrackingNumber. I have tried the following:
1) ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Table1]
ADD [TrackingNumber2] [bigint] IDENTITY (1000000, 1) NOT NULL
2) UPDATE [dbo].[Table1]
SET [TrackingNumber2]=[TrackingNumber]
3) ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Table1]
DROP COLUMN [TrackingNumber]
GO
4) EXEC sp_rename 'Table1.TrackingNumber2', 'TrackingNumber','COLUMN'
I got an error on step 2 - Updating new column with the value from the old column: "Cannot update identity column 'TrackingNumber2'"
Can anyone recommend a workaround?
You just need to set identity_insert on for this table so you can update the values. Make sure you turn it back off when you complete the update. :)
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188059.aspx
Are you sure you need to use an identity column? There are alternatives. For example, since SQL Server 2012 (and azure, too), there are these things called sequences. You can define a sequence to start at any number you like:
create sequence dbo.TrackingSequence
as int
start with 1000000
increment by 1
no maxvalue
no cycle
no cache
Then, you can alter the table such that the default value for the column in question defaults from the sequence:
alter table dbo.MyTable
add constraint [MyTable.TrackingNumber.Default.TrackingSequence]
default( next value for dbo.TrackingSequence ) for TrackingNumber
(If the column already has a default value, you need to remove that first - in a separate statement.)
A sequence works a lot like an identity, but you don't have to disrupt existing values or the column definition per se.
The only trick is to remember to not specify the value for TrackingNumber, and let the DB do its thing.
Sequences are cool in that you can have one sequence that is used by multiple tables, giving you somewhat shorter db-wide unique IDs than alternatives in the past. For such an application, you'd probably be better off with a bigint column - or know that the tables in question aren't going to be terribly long.
I ended up creating a new table and moving data in there
I am troubleshooting a db (not my forte) that has some tables that are auto incrementing on the id column and some tables are not?
Now all the tables are set as identity and marked to disallow null. I am using SSMS what else can I check or do to get these tables back to auto incrementing?
TIA
Interestingly to me...probably old news to you guys. The issue had to do with existing data. So for example a table that had 100 rows in did NOT have the identity column setup. So I would go in and make it an identity with a seed of 1 incrementing 1. Well the seed was somehow having trouble because there was already 100 rows in there. So for all my tables I had to do a row count and seed the identity from the next row. Now it is working as expected.
Having an IDENTITY column is pretty straightforward for a table, and if you are not seeing the auto incrementing behavior of a column on inserts, then I'd first verify that your column is indeed an IDENTITY column:
use <Your Database Name>;
go
select
name,
is_identity
from sys.columns
where object_id = object_id('<Your Table Name>')
order by column_id;
Substitute <Your Database Nam> and <Your Table Name> for their appropriate values.
The other possibility is that data that "appears" to be non-incrementing could have been pushed out to that with a session that set identity insert and pushed out explicit values.
ALTER TABLE YourTable MODIFY COLUMN YourTable_id int(4) auto_increment
Good Morning. I have two tables, and one references the other. When I insert into the primary table, the primary key is auto-generated, viz Identity field. I need to insert this value into the second table.
I found out using the OUTPUT clause will give me the just inserted identity value, ans so I tried this.
insert into owners (pId)
insert into personal (firstName)
output inserted.pId
values ('fn')
It doesn't work though. I get an error:
Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'insert'
The personal table is the primary table, and the owners table contains the foreign key.
How can I do the required in SQL Server?
I've got stuck-up here for the past two days...
I think you just have your syntax slightly off - you can definitely take values inserted into the main table and use the OUTPUT clause to insert those into a secondary table.
INSERT INTO dbo.personal(firstName)
OUTPUT INSERTED.pId INTO dbo.owners(pId)
VALUES('fn')
This will insert a new row into personal and set the column firstName to fn. From that insert, the inserted row's identity column pId is then inserted into the other table, owners, as that table's pId column.
See the MSDN documentation on the OUTPUT clause for more details - you can either output any of the inserted values to the console (e.g. SQL Server Mgmt Studio), or you can output those values into a temporary or a permanent table.
Update: as 'dradu' has pointed out - this approach won't work in your case here, since the column in the owners table is part of a FK constraint (I had missed that point from your question). So you'll need to use some other way to do this - probably outputting the necessary information into a temporary table / table variable in your code
Try the following steps
1) Apply transaction level on insertion
2) Get last inserted id using Scope_Identity() function.
When you apply transaction level it will lock your tables and other/same user cannot insert the value in this time.
try this it will work for you.
Since OUTPUT clause cannot be used directly because of the foreign key, you could add the generated IDs into a temporary table, then insert those values into the owners table:
BEGIN TRANSACTION
CREATE TABLE #ids(ID INT)
INSERT INTO personal(firstName)
OUTPUT inserted.pid INTO #ids
SELECT 'A'
UNION SELECT 'B'
INSERT INTO owners(pid)
SELECT ID FROM #ids
COMMIT TRANSACTION
SCOPE_IDENTITY will work too, but it's limited to one value.
You can use the SCOPE_IDENTITY() function to return the identity value inserted.
DECLARE #id INT
INSERT INTO [Personal] (Colums ....) VALUES (this, that, stuff)
SET #id = SCOPE_IDENTITY()
INSERT INTO [Owners] (Colums ....) VALUES (#id ....)
I think Your option is to use SCOPE_IDENTITY() but the other closest to your option is IDENT_CURRENT(‘tablename’) so I thought, I post detail of detail of other identity options as well which might help you to understand your choice and might helpful some other time
##IDENTITY
It returns the last IDENTITY value produced on a connection, regardless of the table that produced the value, and regardless of the
scope of the statement that produced the value.
SCOPE_IDENTITY() It returns the last IDENTITY value produced on
a connection and by a statement in the same scope, regardless of the
table that produced the value.
IDENT_CURRENT(‘tablename’) It returns the last IDENTITY value
produced in a table, regardless of the connection that created the
value, and regardless of the scope of the statement that produced the
value.
Here is one simple example of using SCOPE_IDENTITY() to get recent Identity Value
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190315.aspx
I want to insert an item to a table in the database. The table has a key that is auto generated. Is it possible to override the auto generated key, (force a value). If so how?
I'm going to assume you are talking about identity columns and not sequences.
In DB2's CREATE TABLE syntax, have a look at the "generated-column-spec" in the syntax diagram as it relates to identity columns. There are two ways to specify how the identity value will be generated:
GENERATED ALWAYS: this option will always generate and identity value, and you cannot specify a value for the identity column in an insert statement
GENERATED BY DEFAULT: this option will generate an identity value if no value for the column is specified in the insert statement. If you provide a value for the column in the insert statement, db2 will not generate an identity value for it.
If the table you are trying to insert into used the ALWAYS option when the table is created, then you cannot override it. You'll need to drop and recreate the table or use the ALTER TABLE statement to redefine the column to generate the identity value by default only.
If you're trying to LOAD data into a table that has an identity column which is GENERATED ALWAYS then you can do this:
db2 load from tab43.ixf of ixf modified by identityoverride into tablename
Is there any way of changing the identity seed for an identity column permanently? Using DBCC CHECKIDENT just seems to set the last_value. If the table is truncated all values are reset.
dbcc checkident ('__Test_SeedIdent', reseed, 1000)
select name, seed_value, increment_value, last_value
from sys.identity_columns
where [object_id] = OBJECT_ID('__Test_SeedIdent');
returns
name seed_value increment_value last_value
-------------------------------------------------
idIdent 1 1 1000
I was hoping that some syntax like
alter table dbo.__Test_SeedIdent alter column idIdent [int] identity(1000,1) NOT NULL
would exist.
Is it necessary to create a new column, move the values across, drop the original column and rename the new?
From Books Online:
"To change the original seed value and reseed any existing rows, you must drop the identity column and recreate it specifying the new seed value. When the table contains data, the identity numbers are added to the existing rows with the specified seed and increment values. The order in which the rows are updated is not guaranteed."
MSSQL does not allow you to add or alter an Identity on an existing column via TSQL very easily. You would have to drop the column and re-add it. Needless to say this can play hell with FK relations. You can do it directly in the enterprise manager. However that won't be fun if you have to do this to a LOT of columns.
Is it necessary to create a new
column, move the values across, drop
the original column and rename the
new?
Yup, and don't forget to fix/update all indexes, foreign key relationships, etc. that are tied to that column
You can use DBCC CHECKIDENT('tablename', RESEED, seedvalue)
example: DBCC CHECKIDENT('Customers',RESEED, 1350)
run DBCC CHECKIDENT('Customers') again to check if current seed value was set.
However as mentioned in previous answers this will not change existing values stored in the identity column. It will only change seed value so the next row that is inserted will start with that value. Identity increment remains same (not changed) and can not be changed with DBCC.
"Is it necessary to create a new column, move the values across, drop the original column and rename the new?"
Actually in Enterprise Manager, when you add an ID column to an existing table (or change an INT PK field to an INT PK ID), it does this behind the scene.