Question

As most people who work with Sql Server know, you can declare a temporary table like so:

create table #foo 
    (
    row_id int identity not null primary key,
    bar varchar(50) not null default 'YoMomma'
    );

…this will create a primary key and a default constraint on this temporary table; the names for these objects will be unique, dynamically created by Sql Server.

Is it possible to create a dynamically named index for the table after it’s been created? I have a case where a stored procedure using temporary tables may be running multiple instances at the same time, and I’d like to increase the performance without risking a conflict between identically named objects in the tempdb database. CREATE INDEX command requires an explicit index name.

I am looking for a solution that does not involve dynamic SQL, just dynamic names.

Answer 1

This is a non issue. Index names only have to be unique within a table scope, not globally across table scopes. Only constraint names have to be unique within an entire database schema.

So, for example, you can run this in multiple concurrent connections with no problems

CREATE TABLE #T
(
C INT
)

CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX ix on #T(C)

But this would fail under concurrency

ALTER TABLE #T
ADD CONSTRAINT UQ UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED (C)