SQL Server, How to set auto increment after creating a table without data loss?

Question

I have a table table1 in SQL server 2008 and it has records in it.

I want the primary key table1_Sno column to be an auto-incrementing col

Answer 1

Yes, you can. Go to Tools > Designers > Table and Designers and uncheck "Prevent Saving Changes That Prevent Table Recreation".

Answer 2

No, you can not add an auto increment option to an existing column with data, I think the option which you mentioned is the best.

Have a look here.

Answer 3

Below script can be a good solution.Worked in large data as well.

ALTER DATABASE WMlive SET RECOVERY SIMPLE WITH NO_WAIT

ALTER TABLE WMBOMTABLE DROP CONSTRAINT PK_WMBomTable

ALTER TABLE WMBOMTABLE drop column BOMID

ALTER TABLE WMBOMTABLE ADD BomID int IDENTITY(1, 1) NOT NULL;

ALTER TABLE WMBOMTABLE ADD CONSTRAINT PK_WMBomTable PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (BomID);

ALTER DATABASE WMlive SET RECOVERY FULL WITH NO_WAIT

Answer 4

If you don't want to add a new column, and you can guarantee that your current int column is unique, you could select all of the data out into a temporary table, drop the table and recreate with the IDENTITY column specified. Then using SET IDENTITY INSERT ON you can insert all of your data in the temporary table into the new table.

Answer 5

Changing the IDENTITY property is really a metadata only change. But to update the metadata directly requires starting the instance in single user mode and messing around with some columns in sys.syscolpars and is undocumented/unsupported and not something I would recommend or will give any additional details about.

For people coming across this answer on SQL Server 2012+ by far the easiest way of achieving this result of an auto incrementing column would be to create a SEQUENCE object and set the next value for seq as the column default.

Alternatively, or for previous versions (from 2005 onwards), the workaround posted on this connect item shows a completely supported way of doing this without any need for size of data operations using ALTER TABLE...SWITCH. Also blogged about on MSDN here. Though the code to achieve this is not very simple and there are restrictions - such as the table being changed can't be the target of a foreign key constraint.

Example code.

Set up test table with no identity column.

CREATE TABLE dbo.tblFoo 
(
bar INT PRIMARY KEY,
filler CHAR(8000),
filler2 CHAR(49)
)


INSERT INTO dbo.tblFoo (bar)
SELECT TOP (10000) ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT 0))
FROM master..spt_values v1, master..spt_values v2

Alter it to have an identity column (more or less instant).

BEGIN TRY;
    BEGIN TRANSACTION;

    /*Using DBCC CHECKIDENT('dbo.tblFoo') is slow so use dynamic SQL to
      set the correct seed in the table definition instead*/
    DECLARE @TableScript nvarchar(max)
    SELECT @TableScript = 
    '
    CREATE TABLE dbo.Destination(
        bar INT IDENTITY(' + 
                     CAST(ISNULL(MAX(bar),0)+1 AS VARCHAR) + ',1)  PRIMARY KEY,
        filler CHAR(8000),
        filler2 CHAR(49)
        )

        ALTER TABLE dbo.tblFoo SWITCH TO dbo.Destination;
    '       
    FROM dbo.tblFoo
    WITH (TABLOCKX,HOLDLOCK)

    EXEC(@TableScript)


    DROP TABLE dbo.tblFoo;

    EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.Destination', N'tblFoo', 'OBJECT';


    COMMIT TRANSACTION;
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
    IF XACT_STATE() <> 0 ROLLBACK TRANSACTION;
    PRINT ERROR_MESSAGE();
END CATCH;

Test the result.

INSERT INTO dbo.tblFoo (filler,filler2) 
OUTPUT inserted.*
VALUES ('foo','bar')

Gives

bar         filler    filler2
----------- --------- ---------
10001       foo       bar      

Clean up

DROP TABLE dbo.tblFoo

Answer 6

If you want to do this via the designer you can do it by following the instructions here "Save changes is not permitted" when changing an existing column to be nullable