Adding an identity to an existing column

Question

I need to change the primary key of a table to an identity column, and there\'s already a number of rows in table.

I\'ve got a script to clean up the IDs to ensure

Answer 1

I don't believe you can alter an existing column to be an identity column using tsql. However, you can do it through the Enterprise Manager design view.

Alternatively you could create a new row as the identity column, drop the old column, then rename your new column.

ALTER TABLE FooTable
ADD BarColumn INT IDENTITY(1, 1)
               NOT NULL
               PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED

Answer 2

Basically there are four logical steps.

1. Create a new Identity column. Turn on Insert Identity for this new column.

2. Insert the data from the source column (the column you wished to convert to Identity) to this new column.

3. Turn off the Insert Identity for the new column.

4. Drop your source column & rename the new column to the name of the source column.

There may be some more complexities like working across multiple servers etc.

Please refer the following article for the steps (using ssms & T-sql). These steps are intended for beginners with less grip on T-SQL.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/23816.how-to-convert-int-column-to-identity-in-the-ms-sql-server.aspx

Answer 3

In SQL 2005 and above, there's a trick to solve this problem without changing the table's data pages. This is important for large tables where touching every data page can take minutes or hours. The trick also works even if the identity column is a primary key, is part of a clustered or non-clustered index, or other gotchas which can trip up the the simpler "add/remove/rename column" solution.

Here's the trick: you can use SQL Server's ALTER TABLE...SWITCH statement to change the schema of a table without changing the data, meaning you can replace a table with an IDENTITY with an identical table schema, but without an IDENTITY column. The same trick works to add IDENTITY to an existing column.

Normally, ALTER TABLE...SWITCH is used to efficiently replace a full partition in a partitioned table with a new, empty partition. But it can also be used in non-partitioned tables too.

I've used this trick to convert, in under 5 seconds, a column of a of a 2.5 billion row table from IDENTITY to a non-IDENTITY (in order to run a multi-hour query whose query plan worked better for non-IDENTITY columns), and then restored the IDENTITY setting, again in less than 5 seconds.

Here's a code sample of how it works.

 CREATE TABLE Test
 (
   id int identity(1,1),
   somecolumn varchar(10)
 );

 INSERT INTO Test VALUES ('Hello');
 INSERT INTO Test VALUES ('World');

 -- copy the table. use same schema, but no identity
 CREATE TABLE Test2
 (
   id int NOT NULL,
   somecolumn varchar(10)
 );

 ALTER TABLE Test SWITCH TO Test2;

 -- drop the original (now empty) table
 DROP TABLE Test;

 -- rename new table to old table's name
 EXEC sp_rename 'Test2','Test';

 -- update the identity seed
 DBCC CHECKIDENT('Test');

 -- see same records
 SELECT * FROM Test; 

This is obviously more involved than the solutions in other answers, but if your table is large this can be a real life-saver. There are some caveats:

• As far as I know, identity is the only thing you can change about your table's columns with this method. Adding/removing columns, changing nullability, etc. isn't allowed.
• You'll need to drop foriegn keys before you do the switch and restore them after.
• Same for WITH SCHEMABINDING functions, views, etc.
• new table's indexes need to match exactly (same columns, same order, etc.)
• Old and new tables need to be on the same filegroup.
• Only works on SQL Server 2005 or later
• I previously believed that this trick only works on the Enterprise or Developer editions of SQL Server (because partitions are only supported in Enterprise and Developer versions), but Mason G. Zhwiti in his comment below says that it also works in SQL Standard Edition too. I assume this means that the restriction to Enterprise or Developer doesn't apply to ALTER TABLE...SWITCH.

There's a good article on TechNet detailing the requirements above.

UPDATE - Eric Wu had a comment below that adds important info about this solution. Copying it here to make sure it gets more attention:

There's another caveat here that is worth mentioning. Although the new table will happily receive data from the old table, and all the new rows will be inserted following a identity pattern, they will start at 1 and potentially break if the said column is a primary key. Consider running DBCC CHECKIDENT('<newTableName>') immediately after switching. See msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms176057.aspx for more info.

If the table is actively being extended with new rows (meaning you don't have much if any downtime between adding IDENTITY and adding new rows, then instead of DBCC CHECKIDENT you'll want to manually set the identity seed value in the new table schema to be larger than the largest existing ID in the table, e.g. IDENTITY (2435457, 1). You might be able to include both the ALTER TABLE...SWITCH and the DBCC CHECKIDENT in a transaction (or not-- haven't tested this) but seems like setting the seed value manually will be easier and safer.

Obviously, if no new rows are being added to the table (or they're only added occasionally, like a daily ETL process) then this race condition won't happen so DBCC CHECKIDENT is fine.

Answer 4

Right click on table name in Object Explorer. You will get some options. Click on 'Design'. A new tab will be opened for this table. You can add Identity constraint here in 'Column Properties'.

Answer 5

Simple explanation

Rename the existing column using sp_RENAME

EXEC sp_RENAME 'Table_Name.Existing_ColumnName' , 'New_ColumnName', 'COLUMN'

Example for Rename :

The existing column UserID is renamed as OldUserID

EXEC sp_RENAME 'AdminUsers.UserID' , 'OldUserID', 'COLUMN'

Then add a new column using alter query to set as primary key and identity value

ALTER TABLE TableName ADD Old_ColumnName INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY(1,1)

Example for Set Primary key

The new created column name is UserID

ALTER TABLE Users ADD UserID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY(1,1)

then Drop the Renamed Column

ALTER TABLE Table_Name DROP COLUMN Renamed_ColumnName

Example for Drop renamed column

ALTER TABLE Users DROP COLUMN OldUserID

Now we've adding a primarykey and identity to the existing column on the table.

Answer 6

To modify the identity properties for a column:

• In Server Explorer, right-click the table with identity properties you want to modify and click Open Table Definition. The table opens in Table Designer.
• Clear the Allow nulls check box for the column you want to change.
• In the Column Properties tab, expand the Identity Specification property.
• Click the grid cell for the Is Identity child property and choose Yes from the drop-down list.
• Type a value in the Identity Seed cell. This value will be assigned to the first row in the table. The value 1 will be assigned by default.

That's it, and it worked for me