how can I use GUID datatype in SQL Server 2008?

Question

I want to build an employees table using SQL SERVER 2008 , and in my table I want to have an ID for each employee .

I heared about GUID and I kind of understood that its a data type , But I couldn't use it

could you please show me the way to use it ...

by the way , lets say I want something like this :

CREATE TABLE Employees (
ID guid PRIMARY KEY,
Name NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL
)

How can I do it ?? because I want to benefit from it , but I couldn't find out how to do that

Answer 1

It's not called GUID in SQL Server. It's called uniqueidentifier

Answer 2

The type is called UNIQUEIDENTIFIER as others have pointed out already. But I think you absolutely must read this article before proceeding: GUIDs as PRIMARY KEYs and/or the clustering key

Answer 3

They are called uniqueidentifier

Answer 4

Don't use uniqueidentifier as primary key if clustered (which is the default for PKs)

Seriously: use a standard IDENTITY instead

Answer 5

Practical demo, FWIW

DECLARE @guid1 AS uniqueidentifier
SET @guid1 = NEWID()
SELECT @guid1

Answer 6

You can also consider using NEWSEQUENCIALID as the default value for your ID column as it would be faster than using NEWID() generate the GUIDs.

BUT (from the same link above):-

If privacy is a concern, do not use this function. It is possible to guess the value of the next generated GUID and, therefore, access data associated with that GUID.