if i need a column to hold a guid value which type should it be?

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if i need a column to hold a guid value which type should it be?

Snargables

SSCrazy Eights

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January 3, 2012 at 10:26 am

#248385

Should it just be a varchar(100)?

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Snargables SSCrazy Eights Points: 8855 More actions · Answer 1

Snargables

SSCrazy Eights

Points: 8855

January 3, 2012 at 10:28 am

#1427878

uniqueIdentifier?

brendan woulfe Hall of Fame Points: 3888 More actions · Answer 2

Yeah, uniqueIdentifier is what you're looking for. I generally try to avoid them but I'm sure they have their uses.

Johan Bijnens SSC Guru Points: 135369 More actions · Answer 3

bwoulfe (1/3/2012)
Yeah, uniqueIdentifier is what you're looking for. I generally try to avoid them but I'm sure they have their uses.

+1

Choosing the correct datatype does matter !

Just keep in mind you may be wasting space if there is a better alternative .

http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/PAUL/post/Survey-results-How-cluster-key-size-can-lead-to-GBs-of-wasted-space.aspx

http://www.sqlskills.com/BLOGS/KIMBERLY/category/GUIDs.aspx

Johan

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Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004356 More actions · Answer 4

My recommendation is that, while UniqueIdentifier and GUIDs certainly have their good uses, they should probably never be used as a Clustered Index. Further, yes, they can be used as a PK, but if it's not really needed to maintain "uniqueness" across multiple servers or some such, I'd avoid the use of GUIDs for all the reasons found in the link to Kimberly Tripp's article that ALZDBA provided a link to, and more.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

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