Extensible Storage Engine - Records and Columns - Version, Auto-increment and Escrow Columns

Version, Auto-increment and Escrow Columns

Version columns are automatically incremented by ESE each time a record containing this column is modified via an Update operation. This column cannot be set by the application, but can only be read. Applications of version columns include being used to determine if an in-memory copy of a given record needs to be refreshed. If the value in a table record is greater than the value in a cached copy then the cached copy is known to be out of date. Version columns must be of type Long.

Auto increment columns are automatically set by ESE such that the value contained in the column is unique for every record in the table. These columns, like version columns, cannot be set by the application. Auto increment columns are read only, and are automatically set when a new record is inserted into a table via an Update operation. The value in the column remains constant for the life of the record, and only one auto increment column is allowed per table. Auto increment columns may be of type Long or type Currency .

Escrow columns can be modified via an EscrowUpdate operation. Escrowed updates are numeric delta operations. Escrow columns must be of type Long. Examples of numeric delta operations include adding 2 to a value or subtracting 1 from a value. ESE tracks the change in a value rather than the end value of an update. Multiple sessions may each have outstanding changes made via EscrowUpdate to the same value because ESE can determine the actual end value regardless of which transactions commit and which transactions rollback. This allows multiple users to concurrently update a column by making numeric delta changes.