How To Create Table with Identity Column

Question

I have an existing table that I am about to blow away because I did not create it with the ID column set to be the table's Identity column.

Using SQL Server Management Studio, I scripted a "Create To..." of the existing table and got this:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[History](
    [ID] [int] NOT NULL,
    [RequestID] [int] NOT NULL,
    [EmployeeID] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [DateStamp] [datetime] NOT NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_History] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [ID] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

My question is, how would I modify this SQL so that my resulting table has the ID column set as the Identity?

Answer 1

[id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,

of course since you're creating the table in SQL Server Management Studio you could use the table designer to set the Identity Specification.

Answer 2

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[History](
    [ID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [RequestID] [int] NOT NULL,
    [EmployeeID] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [DateStamp] [datetime] NOT NULL,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_History] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [ID] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON)
) ON [PRIMARY]

Answer 3

Unique key allows max 2 NULL values. Explaination:

create table teppp
(
id int identity(1,1) primary key,
name varchar(10 )unique,
addresss varchar(10)
)

insert into teppp ( name,addresss) values ('','address1')
insert into teppp ( name,addresss) values ('NULL','address2')
insert into teppp ( addresss) values ('address3')

select * from teppp
null string , address1
NULL,address2
NULL,address3

If you try inserting same values as below:

insert into teppp ( name,addresss) values ('','address4')
insert into teppp ( name,addresss) values ('NULL','address5')
insert into teppp ( addresss) values ('address6')

Every time you will get error like:

Violation of UNIQUE KEY constraint 'UQ__teppp__72E12F1B2E1BDC42'. Cannot insert duplicate key in object 'dbo.teppp'.
The statement has been terminated.

Answer 4

This has already been answered, but I think the simplest syntax is:

CREATE TABLE History (
    ID int primary key IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    . . .

The more complicated constraint index is useful when you actually want to change the options.

By the way, I prefer to name such a column HistoryId, so it matches the names of the columns in foreign key relationships.