Paul White (9/7/2009)
But for a table which just needs sequential row numbers adding to it, even 2008 doesn't have a faster method.
It depends. In SQL Server 2005/2008 you can avoid the usage of a temporary table and directly create an incremental ID by bulk selecting data from source tables (if available).
I thought it was an interesting use of IDENTITY, and SWITCH.
Sorry, didn't answer the IDENTITY part and even notice the SWITCH. Didn't ever see the SWITCH command. How cool is that!
Haven't seen you around much recently...?
Quiet busy these days... We started the second part of our system redesign. So I have to do many project management things like specifications, cost estimates, ... (and way too much meetings!).