Row numbers in query result using Microsoft Access

Question

I always use this query in sql server to get Row number in a table:

SELECT *
FROM   (SELECT *,
               Row_number()
                 OVER(
                    


        

Answer 1

Though this is an old question, this has worked for me, but I've never tested its efficiency...

SELECT 
    (SELECT COUNT(t1.SourceID) 
     FROM [SourceTable] t1 
     WHERE t1.SourceID

Some advantages of this method:

• It doesn't rely on the order of the table, either - the RowID is calculated on its actual value and those that are less than it.
• This method can be applied to any (primary key) type (e.g. Number, String or Date).
• This method is fairly SQL agnostic, or requires very little adaptation.

Final Thoughts

Though this will work with practically any data type, I must emphasise that, for some, it may create other problems. For instance, with strings, consider:

ID     Description    ROWID
aaa    Aardvark           1
bbb    Bear               2
ccc    Canary             3

If I were to insert: bba Boar, then the Canary RowID will change...

ID     Description    ROWID
aaa    Aardvark           1
bbb    Bear               2
bba    Boar               3
ccc    Canary             4