Re: Negative Numbers in "Identity" or" Autonumber" fields

Tam OShanter wrote:

> Any thought's on using negative numbers as surrogate primary keys?
>
> Working with some folks who are of the opinion that using ranges such
> as -1,-2,-3 is appropriate for surrogate keys for code tables.
>
> I'm of the opinion that this is impractical, as, you can't show someone -1
> apples or -1 cars (or whatever you are identifying...).
>
> Not seen this before.
>
> I realize, as long as these values meet the criteria of being a Primary Key
> (that is unique and not null) there is no problem (technically) with this
> approach.
>
> Thought on this approach as a matter of form?
>
> Thanks for the feedback.

As a matter of fact, I recently suggested using the negative range for extending a system. The positive range of one key was exposed to the users who naturally started using it frequently in their communications.

The extension would have increased the number of entries by a couple orders of magnitude with stuff that was already recognizable by other attributes. Using an overlapping range would have made the now familiar numbers more difficult to remember. Received on Mon Mar 19 2007 - 21:47:02 CET