Different ways to get Identity of New Inserted Rows in SQL Server

There are different methods to know the Identity Value of a newly added row.

Let us consider the following example:

--Create a Table
CREATE TABLE test
(
id int identity(1,1),
names varchar(100)
)

--Insert Data
INSERT INTO test(names) SELECT 'testing'

--Get Identity Value that is Populated in the Current Scope
SELECT scope_identity()


--Get Identity value that is Populated in the Current Session
SELECT @@identity

--Get Identity value that is Populated in the Table
--Regardless of Scope and Session
SELECT ident_current('test')

Note that first two methods wont give correct values if data are added to the ‘different tables’.

OUTPUT

About The Author

Madhivanan,an MSc computer Science graduate from Chennai-India, works as a works as a Lead Subject Matter Expert at a company that simplifies BIG data. He started his career as a developer working with Visual Basic 6.0, SQL Server 2000 and Crystal Report 8. As years went by, he started working more on writing queries in SQL Server. He now has good level of knowledge in SQLServer, Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL as well. He is also one of the leading posters at www.sqlteam.com and a moderator at www.sql-server-performance.com. His T-sql blog is at http://beyondrelational.com/blogs/madhivanan

4 comments:

satyan said...: this is very good info madhivnan that helped us solve a issue. I had no idea on local scope and session identity.; August 8, 2010 at 11:55 PM
Adam Zochowski said...: ident_current() will cause problems with concurency. Don't use!

@@identity will cause problems with triggers. Don't use!

Always use scope_identity() !

Cheers; August 9, 2010 at 7:51 AM
Unknown said...: You also could use the OUTPUT Clause.

DECLARE @VarGen TABLE (idEmployee INTEGER)
insert into employee(field1, field2)
OUTPUT Inserted.idEmployee INTO @VarGen
values(value1, value2)

you have the identity in:
select idEmployee from @VarGen

Emito.; August 10, 2010 at 5:58 AM
Anonymous said...: If you are inserting multiple records with one insert statement and need to return the ID values for all rows inserted, try this:

DECLARE @Values table(
ID int not null identity(1,1) primary key,
Ident int)

INSERT Messages (
ID, date, CustomerNumber, CheckNumber)
OUTPUT INSERTED.Ident
INTO @Values (Ident)
select
from #AutoCloseMessage t

You will get a result of @Values containing all of the Idents that were inserted into the Messages table; October 13, 2010 at 2:35 PM