[AccessD] AutoNumbers in historical tables

Henry Simpson hsimpson88 at hotmail.com
Mon Jun 30 11:37:53 CDT 2003


If a master table had records one thru 10 and records 3, 8 and 10 were 
deleted and it were necessary to duplicate the data for archive purposes and 
after those deletions it were necessary to record the state that the next 
autonumber would be 11 at that point in time, insert records 1 - 2, 4 
through 7 and 9.  You'd then have to add and delete a dummy record to the 
actual table to determine what the next autonumber would be thereby altering 
the table and then add and delete AN 11 in the archive so that both the 
master and archive table are identical at the time of the backup, with the 
next record for both to be AN 12.  If it were possible to determine the next 
autonumber prior to compacting the database there would be no need to do the 
insert to determine its value.  Purists might do the insert, compact and 
then insert one below in order to preserve the exact status of the table so 
both original and archive would yeild 11 at the next insert.

The main point I was making was that I understood Susan to imply that one 
can not set the value of an autonumber field to any arbitrary valid value 
and that is not accurate.  Any attempt to merge multiple tables that have 
differing field values for identical autonumber records can not be an 
accurate depiction of the state of all the data.  It is not possible to 
retain identical table structure and reconcile duplicate autonumber records 
that have one or more other fields that do not match.

I don't get the point about a fake record with restore.

Hen

>From: "John Colby" <jcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
>Reply-To: Access Developers discussion and problem 
>solving<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
>To: "Access Developers discussion and problem 
>solving"<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
>Subject: RE: [AccessD] AutoNumbers in historical tables
>Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 10:54:13 -0400
>
>Remember though that the autonumber will continue from the last autonumber
>copied into the table, so if you do a restore you MUST go get the last
>number, add 1 to it, and insert a fake record with that number, then delete
>that fake record back out.  At least that is how I handle it.
>
>John W. Colby
>www.colbyconsulting.com
>

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