serialising rows in a table - sql-server-2008

Question

I have a table which contains header information for transactions. The transactions belong to different projects.
In the header I have columns:
rhguid - uniqueidentifier
rhserial - int
rh_projectID - int
First I insert the row (there's more columns)
Then I calculate the serial number for that project:
update responseheader
set rhSerial = 1 + (select isnull(max(rhSerial), 0)
from responseheader
where (rhstatus = 0) AND (rh_projectID = 1234))
where
(rhGUID = <preassignedGUID>);
However when there are many transactions happening at the same time for a project I am finding duplicate rhserial values.
I'm doing this in classic ASP with SQL Server 2008.
Is there a better way?

Answer 1

From your example, it doesn't look like you're using a transaction. My guess is that the SELECT portion of the statement is running as READ UNCOMMITTED, otherwise you would not see duplicates. There are ways to start transactions with ADO, but I prefer using stored procedures instead.
Try implementing something like this:
CREATE PROC dbo.ResponseHeader_Insert
<more data to insert>,
#ProjectID INT,
#Status SMALLINT
as
insert responseheader (column names here)
select <param values here>, isnull(max(rhSerial), 0) + 1
from responseheader
where (rhstatus = #Status) AND (rh_projectID = #ProjectID))
If this doesn't work for ya, try creating sequence tables (one for each sequence).
create table <tablename> (
SeqID int identity(1,1) primary key,
SeqVal varchar(1)
)
Create a procedure to get the next identity:
create procedure GetNewSeqVal_<tablename>
as
begin
declare #NewSeqValue int
set NOCOUNT ON
insert into <tablename> (SeqVal) values ('a')
set #NewSeqValue = scope_identity()
delete from <tablename> WITH (READPAST)
return #NewSeqValue
end
If there are too many sequence tables that need to be created or you want to create sequences on the fly, try this approach:
Create table AllSequences (
SeqName nvarchar(255) primary key, -- name of the sequence
Seed int not null default(1), -- seed value
Incr int not null default(1), -- incremental
Currval int
)
Go
create procedure usp_CreateNewSeq
#SeqName nvarchar(255),
#seed int = 0,
#incr int = 1
as
begin
declare #currval int
if exists (
select 1 from AllSequences
where SeqName = #SeqName )
begin
print 'Sequence already exists.'
return 1
end
if #seed is null set #seed = 1
if #incr is null set #incr = 1
set #currval = #seed
insert into AllSequences (SeqName, Seed, Incr, CurrVal)
values (#SeqName, #Seed, #Incr, #CurrVal)
end
go
create procedure usp_GetNewSeqVal
#SeqName nvarchar(255)
as
begin
declare #NewSeqVal int
set NOCOUNT ON
update AllSequences
set #NewSeqVal = CurrVal = CurrVal+Incr
where SeqName = #SeqName
if ##rowcount = 0 begin
print 'Sequence does not exist'
return
end
return #NewSeqVal
end
go