Autonumber Drastic Increase

[Liz]

Access 2007. I have a table with a primary key using an Autonumber. The
first several records numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, .... etc. I then imported data
from an Excel spreadsheet - they didn't import in order but after sorting I
could see that the Autonumber worked fine. When I tried to manually enter a
new record, the Autonumber jumped to 62 million.

What's up? Thanks for the help.

Liz

 

[John W. Vinson]

Access 2007. I have a table with a primary key using an Autonumber. The
first several records numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, .... etc. I then imported data
from an Excel spreadsheet - they didn't import in order but after sorting I
could see that the Autonumber worked fine. When I tried to manually enter a
new record, the Autonumber jumped to 62 million.

What's up? Thanks for the help.

Liz

Not unusual. Autonumbers aren't designed to be gapless - when you do an import
Access sets aside a block of numbers just in case, and these get used up.

You're limited to four billion odd entries, so you should still be fine.

 

[Liz]

Thanks for the help from both of you. I do have a DMax in the default of an
ID Field. I was just concerned that the Autonumber would run out.

 

[John W. Vinson]

Thanks for the help from both of you. I do have a DMax in the default of an
ID Field. I was just concerned that the Autonumber would run out.

It'll run up to 2147483647, flip over to -2147483648, and then count up to 0.
I once figured that to do so at one record per second would take about 60
years.

 

[BruceM]

That would be just to get to the highest positive number before it flips
over to the negative value. A billion seconds is almost 32 years. (I often
use seconds in an attempt to put really large amounts of money and other
such mind-bending facts into perspective, but I can't really grasp the
concept of a trillion dollars, considering that a trillion seconds is 32,000
years).