KB155795 - BUG: Table Populated With Zeros in the Identity Column

Article ID: 155795

Article Last Modified on 10/3/2003

Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q155795

BUG #: Windows NT: 15764 (6.50)
                   15661 (6.00)

SYMPTOMS

When you Insert into a table with an identity column using either

   Select with "order by" and an outer join

   -or-

   Select with distinct and an outer join

the table becomes populated with zeros in the identity column.

RESOLUTION

To work around this problem, you can first do a select into a temp table, and then do the insert from the temp table. For example, the following code reproduces the problem:

create table tbl(i int identity(1,1), id varchar(80))

Insert into tbl(id) select authors.au_id from authors ,titleauthor
   where authors.au_id *= titleauthor.au_id
   order by authors.au_lname

The workaround would be:

select authors.au_id into #temp from authors ,titleauthor 
   where authors.au_id *= titleauthor.au_id
   order by authors.au_lname 
Insert into tbl(id) select * from #temp
drop table #temp

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft SQL Server version 6.5. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

The left outer join syntax also results in the problem mentioned above. The "order by" clause must be present and the column "ordered by" must not be in Select list. The following is a sample query:

   Insert into tabl(id) select authors.au_id from authors ,titleauthor
   where authors.au_id *= titleauthor.au_id
   order by authors.au_lname
   go
   select * from tbl
   go

Keywords: kbbug kbprogramming KB155795