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SQL Server: automatically insert primary key id with IDENTITY columns

A column with the identity property does not need to explicitly be filled with a value in insert statements. SQL Server will automatically provide an increasing and more importantly unique integer (bigint?) for the insert.

Thus, identity-columns are an ideal candidate for primary keys in SQL Server.

create table dbo.tq84_identity (
  id   integer identity
       primary key, -- identity columns are not automatically made primary keys.
  txt  varchar(10)
);

insert into tq84_identity (txt) values ('foo');
insert into tq84_identity (txt) values ('bar');
insert into tq84_identity (txt) values ('baz');

select * from tq84_identity;
--
-- id          txt
-- ----------- ----------
-- 1           foo
-- 2           bar
-- 3           baz

drop table tq84_identity;

Github repository about-MSSQL, path: /sql/create/table/identity.sql

SQL Server: automatically insert primary key id with IDENTITY columns

See also