tsql identity insert without column name list

Question

I am going to dump some data from one db to another one. I am using

set identity_insert MyTable on
GO
INSERT INTO MyTable SELECT * FROM sourceDB.dbo.MyTable
GO
set identity_insert MyTable off

Is anyway to get this to work? There's 30 tables and it will be time consuming to add the list of column names to the insert statement. I am using SQL server 2000. Will be upgraded to SQL server 2008 in the near future.

EDIT: MyTable has an identity column.

Answer 1

Just drag and drop the column names from the object browser. You can do it one step it takes about 1 second longer than writing select * and you should never use select * in production code anyway. It is a poor practice.

I am concerned about you inserting Identity columns though, this is something that should almost never be done. What if the original table had some identity columns that are the same as existing ids in the new table? Make sure to check for this before deciding to insert id values from another table. I prefer to do the insert to the parent table and get a new id and match it to the old id (output is good for this in 2008) and then use the new id for any child tables but join on the old id.

Answer 2

Having just tried this scenario on a SQL Server 2000 SP2 machine, I receive this error, and seems to confirm your observations.

An explicit value for the identity column in table 'Foo2' can only be specified when a column list is used and IDENTITY_INSERT is ON.

set identity_insert Foo2 on
GO
INSERT INTO Foo2 select top 100 * from Foo where id > 110000
GO
set identity_insert Foo2 off

The SELECT INTO suggestion would only help to get the data into a staging table. At some point, you'd have to explicitly state the column names.

Tip on column names: Highlight the table in a SSMS query, and hit Alt-F1 (shortcut for sp_help). You can then copy/paste the resulting column_name into your query, and simply add the commas by hand. Take the shortcuts a step further, and paste them into Excel, type one comma, and copy down the columns.