Method Community

Hi.

When we have a table that is 5 records long,

RecordID   Letter

1                     A

2                     B

3                     C

4                     D

5                     E

why is it that deleting a record, such as record 4, that the record numbers do not change to say 1-4 ?.

(1) If  a table row four is deleted, the record numbers are listed as follows: 1,2,3,5 instead.

(2) Is the recordId not the  true record number from the physical table,

(3) or is this 4th record remaining as stored but not shown? ..

(5) I was intending to use the highest record id to indicate the number of records in the table but that doesnt seem to be a valid use anymore. For now i'll look into making a count variable with the loop through table action.

Thx,

Joe.

Hi Joe,

The record ID for a table serves as a unique identifier for that particular record and cannot be reused. Think of the record ID as a permanently bound unique ID for a newly added record.

Newly added records will always have a record ID of the last record ID generated incremented by 1. Deleting a record will permanently remove the record from the table but will not affect existing or future record IDs.
 
You can easily get the number or records (count) in a table by using the Retrieve Value from table for the record ID field where the record ID is greater than 0. Beside the option for If multiple results: select ‘Retrieve Count’.

Hope that helps,

Soooo if the recordId never changes .. what happens when more records have been created over the years than possible to store in a 32 (or possibley 64 bit) value... though even 32 bit will hold up to around 4 billion in a single register, an ongoing program will eventually blow through this with daily use, if deleted recordId's can never be resused.. I suppose i'm getting ahead of myself and away from the original question.

So in short,

Thanks Val - that did answer my question =).

~Joe