I know, I know - normally you wouldn't want to do such a thing, but...

I am trying to copy data from a production database to a development version. Identity columns exist in the production copy and the test version must maintain the exact same identity values when I copy the rows from one table to the other. Not only is there an integrity issue with other tables, but I want to use the Update command to pass an entire table and it requries an identity field.

It seems like the only way to do this is to turn off the Identity specification before the copy, and then turn it back on afterwards. Is there a simple way to do this in VB.NET 2010?

Or is there a better way to do this that will result in exactly duplicate data in both production and test database tables without disconnecting the production database or referencing backups? Both involve our DBA and as this will need to happen routinely during testing, I'd rather do it myself.

Thanks!

yes u can simple do it in ur command in VB by SQLCommand
but u should have the role to ALTER tables

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Always,
Hovik Melkomian.

It's not that uncommon, especially not in the scenario you're describing where you import existing data.

The trick is turn on the identity insert, like this:

From there, you can supply explicit values, like this:

Hope this helps,

Imar

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Imar Spaanjaars
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Author of Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 : in C# and VB, Beginning ASP.NET Web Pages with WebMatrix
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That did the trick - thanks to both of you!