Question

i’ve got an issue due to database conception.

My data are grouped in a table which looks like :

IdGroup | IdValue

So for each group i’ve got the list of value.

Indeed, we should have had an order column or an id, but i can’t.

Do you know anyway which can prove the order of the select value based on the insert order ?

I mean, if I inserted 1003,1001,1002 could i garantuee it to be retrieve in this order ?

IdGroup | IdValue
1       | 1003
1       | 1001
1       | 1002

Of course, using an order by doesn’t seems to fit because i don’t have any column usable.

Any idea ? Using a system proc or something like this.

Thanks a lot 🙂

Stop telling me to use an order by and altering the table, it doesn’t fit and yes i know it’s the good pratice to do… thanks 🙂

Answer 1

A couple of ideas:

DBCC PAGE (undocumented) can be used to look at the raw data pages of the table. It may be possible to determine insert order by looking at the low level information.

If you cannot alter the table, can you add a table to the database? If so, consider creating a table with an identity column and use a trigger on the original table to insert the records in the new table.

Also, you should include which version(s) of SQL Server are involved. Doing anything this unusual will very often be version specific.