Auto increment primary key in SQL Server Management Studio 2012

Question

How do I auto increment the primary key in a SQL Server database table? I've had a look through the forum but can't see how to do this.

I've looked at the properties but can't see an option. I saw an answer where you go to the Identity specification property and set it to yes and set the Identity increment to 1, but that section is grayed out and I can't change the no to yes.

There must be a simple way to do this but I can't find it.

Answer 1

I had this issue where I had already created the table and could not change it without dropping the table so what I did was: (Not sure when they implemented this but had it in SQL 2016)

Right click on the table in the Object Explorer:

Script Table as > DROP And CREATE To > New Query Editor Window

Then do the edit to the script said by Josien; scroll to the bottom where the CREATE TABLE is, find your Primary Key and append IDENTITY(1,1) to the end before the comma. Run script.

The DROP and CREATE script was also helpful for me because of this issue. (Which the generated script handles.)

Answer 2

Make sure that the Key column's datatype is int and then setting identity manually, as image shows

Or just run this code utilizing IDENTITY(seed, increment) modifier

-- ID is the name of the  [to be] identity column
ALTER TABLE [yourTable] DROP COLUMN ID 
ALTER TABLE [yourTable] ADD ID INT IDENTITY(1,1)

the code will run, if ID is not the only column in the table

image reference fifo's

Answer 3

When you're creating the table, you can create an IDENTITY column as follows:

CREATE TABLE (
  ID_column INT NOT NULL IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,
  ...
);

The IDENTITY property will auto-increment the column up from number 1. (Note that the data type of the column has to be an integer.) If you want to add this to an existing column, use an ALTER TABLE command.

Edit:
Tested a bit, and I can't find a way to change the Identity properties via the Column Properties window for various tables. I guess if you want to make a column an identity column, you HAVE to use an ALTER TABLE command.

Answer 4

You could do the following: New Table Creation:

-- create new table with Column ID which is Primary Key and Auto Increment --
    
CREATE TABLE titles(
      id INT NOT NULL IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,  --Primary Key with Auto-Increment --
      keyword        VARCHAR(260),
      status VARCHAR(10),
 );

If you Table Already exists and need to make the changes to ID column to be auto-increment and Primary key, then see below:

ALTER TABLE table DROP COLUMN id; // drop the existing ID in the table 
ALTER TABLE table ADD id int IDENTITY(1, 1) NOT NULL; // add new column ID with auto-increment
ALTER TABLE table ADD CONSTRAINT PK_ident_test PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED (id); // make it primary key

Answer 5

CREATE TABLE Persons (
    Personid int IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,
    LastName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
    FirstName varchar(255),
    Age int
);

The MS SQL Server uses the IDENTITY keyword to perform an auto-increment feature.

In the example above, the starting value for IDENTITY is 1, and it will increment by 1 for each new record.

Tip: To specify that the "Personid" column should start at value 10 and increment by 5, change it to IDENTITY(10,5).

To insert a new record into the "Persons" table, we will NOT have to specify a value for the "Personid" column (a unique value will be added automatically):

Answer 6

You can use the keyword IDENTITY as the data type to the column along with PRIMARY KEY constraint when creating the table.
ex:

StudentNumber IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY

In here the first '1' means the starting value and the second '1' is the incrementing value.

Answer 7

Be carefull like if you want the ID elements to be contigius or not. As SQLSERVER ID can jump by 1000 .

Examle: before restart ID=11 after restart , you insert new row in the table, then the id will be 1012.

Answer 8

When you're using Data Type: int you can select the row which you want to get autoincremented and go to the column properties tag. There you can set the identity to 'yes'. The starting value for autoincrement can also be edited there. Hope I could help ;)

Answer 9

If the table is already populated it is not possible to change a column to IDENTITY column or convert it to non IDENTITY column. You would need to export all the data out then you can change column type to IDENTITY or vice versa and then import data back. I know it is painful process but I believe there is no alternative except for using sequence as mentioned in this post.

Answer 10

Perhaps I'm missing something but why doesn't this work with the SEQUENCE object? Is this not what you're looking for?

Example:

CREATE SCHEMA blah.
GO

CREATE SEQUENCE blah.blahsequence
START WITH 1
INCREMENT BY 1
NO CYCLE;

CREATE TABLE blah.de_blah_blah
(numbers bigint PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL
......etc

When referencing the squence in say an INSERT command just use:

NEXT VALUE FOR blah.blahsequence

More information and options for SEQUENCE

Answer 11

Expand your database, expand your table right click on your table and select design from dropdown.

Now go Column properties below of it scroll down and find Identity Specification, expand it and you will find Is Identity make it Yes. Now choose Identity Increment right below of it give the value you want to increment in it.

Answer 12

You have to expand the Identity section to expose increment and seed.

Edit: I assumed that you'd have an integer datatype, not char(10). Which is reasonable I'd say and valid when I posted this answer