SQL - How to find the highest number in a column?

Question

Let\'s say I have the following data in the Customers table: (nothing more)

ID   FirstName   LastName
-------------------------------
20   John        Macken         


        

Answer 1

If you're talking MS SQL, here's the most efficient way. This retrieves the current identity seed from a table based on whatever column is the identity.

select IDENT_CURRENT('TableName') as LastIdentity

Using MAX(id) is more generic, but for example I have an table with 400 million rows that takes 2 minutes to get the MAX(id). IDENT_CURRENT is nearly instantaneous...