Autonumber Question

[Bullfrog]

I have a databse that uses autonumbers for a specific field. Over the
years several have been deleted for whatever reason. is there a way to
make access go back and use these numbers? Nothing I have tried seems
to work. It always continues on from last number used. Any help would
be appreciated. Thanks

Bullfrog

 

[Allen Browne]

No. You cannot set Access up so it just fills in the gaps of missing
autonumbers.

There would be no advantage to doing that anyway. It is designed so that the
AutoNumber value assigned to a record doesn't change over time. Deleted
numbers should not be reused.

 

[Bullfrog]

No. You cannot set Access up so it just fills in the gaps of missing
autonumbers.

There would be no advantage to doing that anyway. It is designed so that the
AutoNumber value assigned to a record doesn't change over time. Deleted
numbers should not be reused.

Wow, talk about a quick response!! Thanks for the info. I was not that
concerned about reusing them. Was just trying to avoid going to 5
digits if I didn't have too. Oh well. Thanks again!!

Bullfrog

 

[John W. Vinson]

Wow, talk about a quick response!! Thanks for the info. I was not that
concerned about reusing them. Was just trying to avoid going to 5
digits if I didn't have too. Oh well. Thanks again!!

In general, it's best to keep Autonumbers "under the hood", not exposing them
to users' view. They're meaningless and arbitrary anyway, and (as you have
seen) will always develop gaps. Generally it's best to just use them for table
linking, and avoid trying to assign meaning to them.

Note that if you Replicate your database (e.g. to allow disconnected portable
computers to update it offline and then later resynchronize) all you
Autonumbers will become random - there might be records with 312884915,
-1842508315 and 55129514 in three sequential records.

John W. Vinson [MVP]