Best way to get identity of inserted row?

Question

What is the best way to get IDENTITY of inserted row?

I know about @@IDENTITY and IDENT_CURRENT and SCOPE_IDENTITY

Answer 1

I believe the safest and most accurate method of retrieving the inserted id would be using the output clause.

for example (taken from the following MSDN article)

USE AdventureWorks2008R2;
GO
DECLARE @MyTableVar table( NewScrapReasonID smallint,
                           Name varchar(50),
                           ModifiedDate datetime);
INSERT Production.ScrapReason
    OUTPUT INSERTED.ScrapReasonID, INSERTED.Name, INSERTED.ModifiedDate
        INTO @MyTableVar
VALUES (N'Operator error', GETDATE());

--Display the result set of the table variable.
SELECT NewScrapReasonID, Name, ModifiedDate FROM @MyTableVar;
--Display the result set of the table.
SELECT ScrapReasonID, Name, ModifiedDate 
FROM Production.ScrapReason;
GO