Learn how to use BIGINT to create auto increment columns in SQL Server. Our SQL Server Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns.

SQL Server Auto Increment BIGINT | How to Use

In the world of database design and management, primary keys play a key role in ensuring data integrity and efficient querying.

SQL Server offers a great way to create auto-incrementing primary key columns, not only with INT data types but also with the larger BIGINT data type.

Today, we are going to take a look at how to create an auto-incrementing BIGINT primary key column with the IDENTITY property in SQL Server.

This property lets us create unique, auto-incrementing values for a column.

Although it is usually used with INT columns, we can also use it with the BIGINT data type.

Let’s take a look at an example:

CREATE TABLE OurTableName
(
ID BIGINT PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY(1,1),
-- Other columns in our table
);

Here, we define a column named “ID” with the BIGINT data type inside the CREATE TABLE statement. We declare it as the primary key by specifying “PRIMARY KEY.”

Furthermore, the first value in IDENTITY is the initial value for the auto-incrementing column, and the second is the value to be added for each new row.

As a result, the “ID” column will automatically generate unique BIGINT values, starting from 1 and increasing by 1 for each new row we insert into the table.

Furthermore, we can insert data into a table with an auto-incrementing BIGINT primary key column as seen here:

INSERT INTO OurTableName (OtherColumn1, OtherColumn2)
VALUES ('Value1', 'Value2');


In conclusion, SQL Server’s IDENTITY property helps create auto-incrementing primary key columns with the BIGINT data type. This is useful when we have large datasets.

[Need assistance with a different issue? Our team is available 24/7.]

Conclusion

In brief, our Support Experts demonstrated how to use SQL Server’s IDENTITY property to create auto-incrementing primary key columns with the BIGINT data type.