[AccessD] AutoNumber To Start From 900120

Charlotte Foust cfoust at infostatsystems.com
Thu May 6 11:13:49 CDT 2004


Remember, autonumbers don't *have* to be > 0!  <VBG>

Charlotte Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: Brett Barabash [mailto:BBarabash at tappeconstruction.com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 8:01 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AutoNumber To Start From 900120


Hmm... Didn't know that.  Good to know.

But what if you have 4,294,967,297 records in your table?  Then you
would run into a primary key conflict when the autonumber reaches 1
again.  Talk about shoddy programming practices!

P.S. For the humor impaired, that was a joke.
P.P.S. If you don't know why that was a joke, try inserting 4 billion
records into an Access table.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Dettman [mailto:jimdettman at earthlink.net]
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 10:51 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AutoNumber To Start From 900120


<<When I asked him why, he told me that he needed to reset the
autonumber so he doesn't reach the upper limit (2,147,483,647).  I told
him that he needed to brush up on his math skills; that apparently he
had no concept of how much a billion was.>>

  Well besides the math, Autonumber will wrap to a negative value after
that and come back to 0.  You can never run out.

Jim
(315) 699-3443
jimdettman at earthlink.net

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Brett Barabash
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 10:13 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AutoNumber To Start From 900120


I had a coworker who used autonumber fields in a few of his temp tables,
who actually used DAO code to remove and re-add the field to his table.

When I asked him why, he told me that he needed to reset the autonumber
so he doesn't reach the upper limit (2,147,483,647).  I told him that he
needed to brush up on his math skills; that apparently he had no concept
of how much a billion was.

Last I heard, he was pursuing a career in politics ;-)


-----Original Message-----
From: John W. Colby [mailto:jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 9:01 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AutoNumber To Start From 900120


>if some specific value of an AutoNumber field is important then the
AutoNumber field is not being used properly (this is an old hobby horse
of mine).

Amen.

OTOH I have had to "reset" the autonumber many times, to a value larger
than the last one used, because something as happened to reset the
autonumber back down to an invalid value.  I was simply answering the
question.  I figured I'd leave the soap box to someone else for once.
;-)

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Heenan,
Lambert
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 9:42 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] AutoNumber To Start From 900120


Quite a few replies to this question, but I'm surprised that nobody has
mentioned that if some specific value of an AutoNumber field is
important then the AutoNumber field is not being used properly (this is
an old hobby horse of mine).

An AutoNumber field is supposed to uniquely identify a specific row in a
table. That's all. The user's need not ever see or know the value of
such an AutoNumber field, it's used by the database to link related
tables together. If the value of an AutoNumber field is important to a
user then it is being given some other meaning, and that's only going to
cause problems down the line. In effect you are storing two pieces of
information in one field, and that's contrary to the normalization
principals we should all at least be aware of.

Even Microsoft seem to have woken up to this as A2K+ no longer reset
AutoNumber's on compacting (thanks for testing that John).

Just my 2 cents.

Lambert

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jim Hewson [SMTP:JHewson at karta.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, May 06, 2004 9:22 AM
> To:	Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject:	RE: [AccessD] Autonumber To Start From 900120
>
>
> Issue?  I thought that was feature.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of John W. 
> Colby
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 8:23 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: RE: [AccessD] Autonumber To Start From 900120
>
>
> Uhh... yep.  At least in A2K and earlier.  AXP doesn't seem to do 
> that. In fact I just tested in A2K SR1 and it isn't resetting the 
> autonumber either,
> so a service pack may have fixed that.  But it definitely used to be
an
> issue so be careful.
>
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Jim DeMarco
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 8:47 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: RE: [AccessD] Autonumber To Start From 900120
>
>
> Yes this will work.  One caveat though: do not compact the db until 
> you've got the seed number you want inserted.  Compacting will reset 
> the autonumber.
>
> Jim DeMarco
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John W. Colby [mailto:jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com]
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 8:45 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: RE: [AccessD] Autonumber To Start From 900120
>
>
> One way that works with all versions of Access (AFAIK) is to append in

> a dummy record specifying a value one less than the number you want.  
> Then go in and delete that record.  The next record will pick up with 
> the next value
> (assuming an incrementing autonumber)
>
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of 
> paul.hartland at fsmail.net
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 8:25 AM
> To: accessd
> Subject: [AccessD] Autonumber To Start From 900120
>
>
> To all,
> Is there a way of telling the Autonumber where to start from in a 
> Database ? Thanks in advance.
> Paul
>
> --


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