Rails - Mar 2006 - ActionRecord: Need for "identity"/"serial" columns?

I have a quick question about ActiveRecord and primary key value 
generation.

Does it hurt to define my primary keys as "IDENTITY" (SQL server) or 
some equivalent database - managed id generation scheme (a la sequences 
in Oracle, etc.) since ActiveRecord is going to manage my id generation 
anyway.

I''m thinking that for SQL server, even if you define your ids as 
"IDENTITY" it won''t matter because if you specify a value for
an
IDENTITY column on an insert, that value will be used instead of the 
auto-generated value.

Anyone have any strong feelings either way?

Thanks,
Wes

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Wes Gamble wrote:
> I have a quick question about ActiveRecord and primary key value 
> generation.
> 
> Does it hurt to define my primary keys as "IDENTITY" (SQL server)
or
> some equivalent database - managed id generation scheme (a la sequences 
> in Oracle, etc.) since ActiveRecord is going to manage my id generation 
> anyway.
> 
You have to.  ActiveRecord doesn''t manage the ID generation - it relies
on the underlying database to do it.  Take a look at the defaults 
supplied by a simple migrated table structure, and you''ll see what it 
expects.

-- 
Alex