INSERT INTO a temp table, and have an IDENTITY field created, without first declaring the temp table?

Question

I need to select a bunch of data into a temp table to then do some secondary calculations; To help make it work more efficiently, I would like to have an IDENTITY column on that

Answer 1

Good Question & Matt's was a good answer. To expand on the syntax a little if the oldtable has an identity a user could run the following:

SELECT col1, col2, IDENTITY( int ) AS idcol
INTO #newtable
FROM oldtable

That would be if the oldtable was scripted something as such:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[oldtable]
(
    [oldtableID] [numeric](18, 0) IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [col1] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
    [col2] [numeric](18, 0) NULL,
)

Answer 2

You could do a Select Into, which would create the table structure on the fly based on the fields you select, but I don't think it will create an identity field for you.

Answer 3

Oh ye of little faith:

SELECT *, IDENTITY( int ) AS idcol
  INTO #newtable
  FROM oldtable

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa933208(SQL.80).aspx

Answer 4

You commented: not working if oldtable has an identity column.

I think that's your answer. The #newtable gets an identity column from the oldtable automatically. Run the next statements:

create table oldtable (id int not null identity(1,1), v varchar(10) )

select * into #newtable from oldtable

use tempdb
GO
sp_help #newtable

It shows you that #newtable does have the identity column.

If you don't want the identity column, try this at creation of #newtable:

select id + 1 - 1 as nid, v, IDENTITY( int ) as id into #newtable
     from oldtable

Answer 5

If you want to include the column that is the current identity, you can still do that but you have to explicitly list the columns and cast the current identity to an int (assuming it is one now), like so:

select cast (CurrentID as int) as CurrentID, SomeOtherField, identity(int) as TempID 
into #temp
from myserver.dbo.mytable

Answer 6

If after the *, you alias the id column that is breaking the query a secondtime... and give it a new name... it magically starts working.

select IDENTITY( int ) as TempID, *, SectionID as Fix2IDs
into #TempSections
from Files_Sections