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This tip will show you how to get the current identity value from a table and also some things that might act a little different than you would expect.

Let's first create our two simple tables

Here are 6 ways to check for the current value

Contents [Hide] 1 @@IDENTITY 2 DBCC CHECKIDENT 3 MAX function 4 TOP 1 and ORDER BY DESC 5 IDENT_CURRENT 6 SCOPE_IDENTITY

@@IDENTITY

DBCC CHECKIDENT

After running DBCC CHECKIDENT the message returned is Checking identity information: current identity value '4', current column value '4'. DBCC execution completed. If DBCC printed error messages, contact your system administrator.

MAX function

You can also check with the MAX function but this is not recommended because you might get some other identity value that is not yours but from a different user

TOP 1 and ORDER BY DESC

The same applies here as for the max function, this is not recommended

IDENT_CURRENT

SCOPE_IDENTITY

This one is very similar to @@IDENTITY with one BIG difference (shown later)

Let's add a trigger to the TestOne table

Let's insert another row into the TestOne table

Now run this

Now why doesn't @@IDENTITY return 5 but 1? This is because @@IDENTITY doesn't care about scope and returns the last identity value from all the statements, which in this case is from the code within the trigger trTestOne

So the bottom line is this: Always use SCOPE_IDENTITY() unless you DO need the last identity value regradless of scope (for example you need to know the identity from the table insert inside the trigger)

But don't let the above test convince you that SCOPE_IDENTITY() and IDENT_CURRENT('TestOne') will always return the same value. If another user adds a record to TestOne after you inserted but before you run the code for IDENT_CURRENT('TestOne'),the value will be 6 instead of 5 for IDENT_CURRENT('TestOne'). This is because it returns the last identity value on the table no matter what user added the record.

Contributed by: --SQLDenis 02:50, 31 May 2008 (GMT)

Part of SQL Server Programming Hacks

Section Handy tricks