What will be the output of the following?

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What will be the output of the following?

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UMG Developer SSChampion Points: 13482 More actions · Answer 1

Sadowy,

I think it is very common for the questions/answers to be corrected/edited between when they are email and when you may get to the web site. Being on the west coast of the US corrections are normally made before I get up and attempt the question.

Given that I don't pay much attention to the question in the email, I always read and answer what is on the web site.

JF1081 SSC Eights! Points: 982 More actions · Answer 2

sadowy (6/30/2010)
I object.
The question presented in the email had:
mainkey int not null identity (-1,1)
but the code in the question and answer on the web site had:
mainkey int not null identity (-1,-1)

EDIT: Removing grumpy comment that I added. Sorry, it has been a tough day.

The reason the email and question are different is explained in the 13 previous pages. You probably do not have to look much past page 2.

badatthis SSC Enthusiast Points: 133 More actions · Answer 3

This may have been covered but can someone tell me why the answer says the order will be -1,-2,-3 since in the create table NO PK IS DEFINED? I understand that this is the order the data was inserted, but without a PK or more specificly a clustered index how can you be assured of the data sort order.

UMG Developer SSChampion Points: 13482 More actions · Answer 4

badatthis: Yes, that issue has been brought up more than once. And I think it goes further than that, even with a PK/clustered index you aren't guaranteed a sort order unless you specify ORDER BY in your SELECT statement. (If I am wrong on this can somebody correct me?)

Ninja's_RGR'us SSC Guru Points: 294069 More actions · Answer 5

UMG Developer (6/30/2010)
badatthis: Yes, that issue has been brought up more than once. And I think it goes further than that, even with a PK/clustered index you aren't guaranteed a sort order unless you specify ORDER BY in your SELECT statement. (If I am wrong on this can somebody correct me?)

no you're right.

dhirendra.singh Newbie Points: 2 More actions · Answer 6

Create Table MyTable

(

mainkey int not null identity (-1,-1)

)

GO

insert into MyTable default values

Select * from MyTable

== > ok in that case mainkey will increase by -1 ,

it will show -1,

-1+(-1)=-2

-2 + (-1) =-3

and so on

Alexander Kuznetsov SSCrazy Points: 2217 More actions · Answer 7

UMG Developer (6/28/2010)
Also, if the identity increment was -1, then both option 1 and 3 would be correct, as there is no clustered index to order it, and no ORDER BY statement specified, so either -1, -2, -3 or -3, -2, -1 could be the result.

+1

Without explicit ORDER BY, there is no way we can predict the order. We could get any permutation, such as 1-,-3,-2 or -2,-1,-3 and so on.

Can you fix the incorrect multiple choice?