Auto-incrementing with leading zeros

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Auto-incrementing with leading zeros

Author

Topic

marchawinslet
Starting Member

11 Posts

Posted - 2006-08-10 : 08:57:26

Hi All,
I need to set up a kind of identity insert that gives an output in the format: 00001, 00002, 00003 etc. Is there a formatting option for this sort of output using normal identity insert features or do I need to write a function to insert these values (perhaps as text) each time a new record is created?
Sorry if this is really simple but it's only my 4th day in this job!
Marcha

harsh_athalye
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

5581 Posts

Posted - 2006-08-10 : 09:02:39

It will be better if you use IDENTITY column...do all formatting (like padding zeros in the begining) at the front-end level if possible.

Harsh Athalye
India.
"Nothing is Impossible"

marchawinslet
Starting Member

11 Posts

Posted - 2006-08-10 : 09:42:32

Thanks Harsh, I thought of this first of all but the problem I have is that other people wil access the table from their own applications and I really need everyone to see a single unified view of the data without the need for formatting instructions.
Any other ideas?

khtan
In (Som, Ni, Yak)

17689 Posts

Posted - 2006-08-10 : 10:07:42

use a computed column to format the zero padding


create table #table
(
	id	int identity(1,1),
	key_id	as right('00000' + convert(varchar(5), id), 5),
	col	int
)

insert into #table (col)
select	10

select * from #table

/*
id          key_id     col         
----------- ---------- ----------- 
1           00001      10
*/

marchawinslet
Starting Member

11 Posts

Posted - 2006-08-10 : 11:25:29

Thanks KHTan, that's just what I needed!

madhivanan
Premature Yak Congratulator

22864 Posts

Posted - 2006-08-10 : 12:11:56

Use only identity column. If you use front end application, use format function to format the number

Madhivanan

Failing to plan is Planning to fail

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