[thelist] preventing duplicate randomly generated ID's was: SQL 2000 auto create ID's

rudy r937 at interlog.com
Tue Aug 27 20:54:01 CDT 2002


> NewID() is a SQL Server function that returns a 32 byte GUID.

speaking of NEWID(), i just heard of this the other day, but in a most
interesting context

i haven't tested this myself, but apparently it works quite nicely --

<tip type="sql">
how do i select 10 random rows from my sql/server table?

   SELECT TOP 10 *
   FROM Northwind..Orders
   ORDER BY NEWID()

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/tips/development/queryresults.asp
</tip>

not sure if this is something you want to do all the time, particularly
since it appears to sort the entire table first, but for a one-shot deal,
it's the cat's pajamas

GUIDs are also quite useful when merging or copying tables with identity
columns


rudy
http://rudy.ca/




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