From: "Ross Lazarus" <rossl@med.usyd.edu.au> identity fields are self-incrementing check out http://sybooks.sybase.com/onlinebooks/group-as/srg1100e/sqlre f/@Generic__BookTextView/64752;hf=0;cs=default;ts=default#X

Unfortunately the IDENTITY column is not a good option. According to our local Sybase expert, The IDENTITY columns are just too buggy to use, even after the newer releases of Sybase. They cause too many troubles, that is why we are looking at alternatives. In older versions of Sybase, the problems were so severe that they would cause the database server to crash. Some drawbacks that were mentioned: (some are fixed, but these are not the only problems...) (1) When database server crashes, apparently the IDENTITY column jumps to the next block of values, so the table index space become sparsely populated, and you may hit the roll-over situation earlier than expected. (2) When using BCP utility to download and upload tables, there are some problems with the IDENTITY columns, too. (3) It is hard to access the values of the IDENTITY column when you are in multiple SQL statements. Anyway, there seem to be too many problems, so the IDENTITY column approach has been discarded. :( regards, Hung Jung ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com