Generate Surrogate Keys

The code for generating surrogate or artificial primary keys has been implemented to address some of the difficulties described in Intelligent Versus Surrogate Keys.

Click here to download fgetcode.zip.

The function f_get_next_surrogate_id takes 4 parameters:

• string - table name
• string - column name for which the next surrogate id is needed
• transaction - e.g., SQLCA
• boolean - issue a commit after the surrogate_id table is updated