Question

I have a table with an IDENTITY column

[Id] int IDENTITY(1, 1) NOT NULL

After some rows beeing added/removed I end with gaps in Id values:

Id   Name
---------
1    Tom
2    Bill
4    Kate

Is there an easy way to compress the values to

Id   Name
---------
1    Tom
2    Bill
3    Kate

?

Answer 1

I think it’s pretty easy to create a 2nd table with the same schema, import all the data (except for the identity column of course; let the 2nd table start renumbering) from the first table, drop the first table and rename the 2nd to the original name.

Easiness may be in question if you’d have a ton of FK relationships to rebuild with other tables etc.