Is there a .NET equivalent to SQL Server's newsequentialid()

Question

We use GUIDs for primary key, which you know is clustered by default.

When inserting a new row into a table it is inserted at a random page in the table (because GUID

Answer 1

It should be possible to create a sequential GUID in c# or vb.net using an API call to UuidCreateSequential. The API declaration (C#) below has been taken from Pinvoke.net where you can also find a full example of how to call the function.

[DllImport("rpcrt4.dll", SetLastError=true)]
static extern int UuidCreateSequential(out Guid guid);

The MSDN article related to the UuidCreateSequential function can be found here which includes the prerequisites for use.

Answer 2

Update 2018: Also check my other answer

This is how NHibernate generate sequantial IDs:

NHibernate.Id.GuidCombGenerator

/// <summary>
/// Generate a new <see cref="Guid"/> using the comb algorithm.
/// </summary>
private Guid GenerateComb()
{
    byte[] guidArray = Guid.NewGuid().ToByteArray();

    DateTime baseDate = new DateTime(1900, 1, 1);
    DateTime now = DateTime.Now;

    // Get the days and milliseconds which will be used to build the byte string 
    TimeSpan days = new TimeSpan(now.Ticks - baseDate.Ticks);
    TimeSpan msecs = now.TimeOfDay;

    // Convert to a byte array 
    // Note that SQL Server is accurate to 1/300th of a millisecond so we divide by 3.333333 
    byte[] daysArray = BitConverter.GetBytes(days.Days);
    byte[] msecsArray = BitConverter.GetBytes((long) (msecs.TotalMilliseconds / 3.333333));

    // Reverse the bytes to match SQL Servers ordering 
    Array.Reverse(daysArray);
    Array.Reverse(msecsArray);

    // Copy the bytes into the guid 
    Array.Copy(daysArray, daysArray.Length - 2, guidArray, guidArray.Length - 6, 2);
    Array.Copy(msecsArray, msecsArray.Length - 4, guidArray, guidArray.Length - 4, 4);

    return new Guid(guidArray);
}

Answer 3

The key problem is knowing what the last value was in a .NET application. SQL Server keeps track of this for you. You will need to hold the last value yourself and use the Guid constructor with a byte array containing the next value. Of course, on a distributed application this probably isn't going to help and you may have to use the randomised Guids. (Not that I see anything wrong with this.)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/90ck37x3.aspx

Answer 4

You can use the tiny NewId library for this.

Install it via NuGet:

Install-Package NewId

And use it like this:

Guid myNewSequentialGuid =  NewId.NextGuid();

See Project Page on GitHub

Answer 5

Here is the C# code to generate a COMB GUID.

byte[] guidArray = System.Guid.NewGuid().ToByteArray();

DateTime baseDate = new DateTime(1900, 1, 1);
DateTime now = DateTime.Now;

// Get the days and milliseconds which will be used to build the byte string 
TimeSpan days = new TimeSpan(now.Ticks - baseDate.Ticks);
TimeSpan msecs = new TimeSpan(now.Ticks - (new DateTime(now.Year, now.Month, now.Day).Ticks));

// Convert to a byte array 
// Note that SQL Server is accurate to 1/300th of a millisecond so we divide by 3.333333 
byte[] daysArray = BitConverter.GetBytes(days.Days);
byte[] msecsArray = BitConverter.GetBytes((long)(msecs.TotalMilliseconds / 3.333333));

// Reverse the bytes to match SQL Servers ordering 
Array.Reverse(daysArray);
Array.Reverse(msecsArray);

// Copy the bytes into the guid 
Array.Copy(daysArray, daysArray.Length - 2, guidArray, guidArray.Length - 6, 2);
Array.Copy(msecsArray, msecsArray.Length - 4, guidArray, guidArray.Length - 4, 4);

return new System.Guid(guidArray);

Answer 6

About the selected answer. The docs says... The generated Guid will not give you uniqueId between computers if they don't have ehternet access.

If you must know the guid when inserting, couldn't you let Sql-server return a block of sequential guids that you assign to your data before you insert them?

declare @ids table(id uniqueidentifier default NEWSEQUENTIALID(), dummy char(1))

declare @c int
set @c = 0;
while (@c < 100)
begin
    insert into @ids (dummy) values ('a');
    set @c += 1;
end

select id from @ids