Tip of the Day : How to Determine if a Table Contains an IDENTITY Column

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SQL Server Tip of the Day - October 22, 2024

How to Determine if a Table Contains an IDENTITY Column

To determine if a table contains an IDENTITY column, run the following statement:

SELECT OBJECTPROPERTY(OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[Company]'), 
'TableHasIdentity')

A value of 1 means that the specified table has an IDENTITY column while a value of 0 means the table doesn’t have an IDENTITY column.  A value of NULL means either the table doesn’t exist or the object name passed is not a table.

To determine which column within a table is the IDENTITY column, run the following statement:

SELECT B.[Name] AS [IdentityColumn]
FROM [sys].[tables] A INNER JOIN [sys].[columns] B
  ON A.[Object_ID] = B.[Object_ID] AND
  A.[Name] = 'Company' AND
  COLUMNPROPERTY(A.[Object_ID], B.[Name], 'IsIdentity') = 1

SQL Server 2012

SQL Server 2008

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