Thread: What is the purpose of the OrderNumbers table in the DB?

I am working on a script to clear out old orders and the purpose of this table isn't readily apparent to me. Is this related to the Orders table?

The OrderNumbers table generates the next unique OrderNumber. The OrderNumber column is defined with an identity specification where the number automatically increases by 1 every time a new record is inserted. This number is then used in the Orders table.

If you're removing records from the Orders table and the other related order tables then it would be reasonable to remove the related records in the OrderNumbers table as well, for integrity.

Of course, if you remove orders then the totals on the admin homepage won't necessarily reflect the business you've done.

Originally Posted by esedirect

The OrderNumbers table generates the next unique OrderNumber. The OrderNumber column is defined with an identity specification where the number automatically increases by 1 every time a new record is inserted. This number is then used in the Orders table.

If you're removing records from the Orders table and the other related order tables then it would be reasonable to remove the related records in the OrderNumbers table as well, for integrity.

Of course, if you remove orders then the totals on the admin homepage won't necessarily reflect the business you've done.

Thanks for the reply. I don't understand why they cant just have the identify field in the Orders table itself, there must be a use case in there somewhere that I am not grasping at this time.

Now that I have the problem with the Profile table under control, I may not need to clear out old orders at this time afterall. I was concerned that I was approaching the 10GB database limit of SQL Express 2008.