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 Article: Numeric Primary Keys

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Posted - 2001-06-12 : 21:08:57
Tim writes "The most obvious thing to do for records that have no unique column/s is to create an int identity column. For example, I have a 'address' table that should have a unique address_id for each record. Now, normally, I would configure a column address_id as 'int identity(1,1) primary key'. But, for theoretical sakes, what happens if one day, I hit the max value for an int (2^31-1). The next time I add a record, I'll get error 8115 (Arithmetic overflow). During this time though, many records have been deleted leaving holes in possible address_id values which I can reuse. How can I effectively reuse these values? Any ideas?"

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