Helen Borrie wrote:

> At 03:08 PM 7/11/2008, you wrote:
>>> Right. Generators are running outside of transaction control.
>> that's what I thought.
>>
>>> But you can decrement a generator value by using a negativ number
>>> as increment. Perhaps this happens somewhere?
>> nope. never even crossed my mind--nor would I let code like that even
>> be played with in my main application. (Anything of that nature get's
>> done outside of the application, in testing apps).
>>
>>> Although, that the numbers in the tables are correct, but the
>>> generator values are not, sounds weird, except you are fiddling
>>> around with decrementing generators, perhaps by accident.
>> it's really strange because the import utility that the person was
>> using imports data into 4 different tables. All 4 tables had problems
>> with their generators being reverted to what it looked like they had
>> been prior to the import.
>>
>> This is the second time in a year I've seen this--happened to someone
>> elses database. Have thousands of users, probably 10-20 users who use
>> the import utility on a somewhat regular basis.
>
> Hmmm, Ed, you need to clarify what the actual problem is that's being observed:

Helen - it SOUNDS like the generator is not actually being used?

The numbers are being incremented and stored starting with the correct 'next
number' given by the generator, but the generator value itself is not being
used by the application - so is not actually updated.
Some sort of caching 'intelligence' in
lPersonID := FIBConn.Gen_ID('GEN_PERSON_ID', 1);
where it is seeded correctly but does not actually generate SQL code back to
the database to update 'GEN_PERSON_ID'.
So the generator is not being 'reverted' but rather never advanced? Which of
cause would create a major problem if two users are both inserting!

That a better description of the problem Ed?

Ed - I prefer to let the Firebird insert these values using a trigger. Ok as
long as you don't need the value in other tables, but more of a problem if you
need to use it as a key to records in detail tables.

--
Lester Caine - G8HFL
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