Generate New GUID (uniqueidentifier) in SQL Server

What is new GUID?

The New-GUID cmdlet creates a random globally unique identifier (GUID). If you need a unique ID in a script, you can create a GUID, as needed.

What is Uniqueidentifier datatype in SQL Server?

The globally unique identifier (GUID) data type in SQL Server is represented by the uniqueidentifier data type, which stores a 16-byte binary value. A GUID is a binary number, and its main use is as an identifier that must be unique in a network that has many computers at many sites.

What is a valid GUID?

Generate New GUID, The valid GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) must specify the following conditions: It should be 36 characters (32 hexadecimal characters and 4 hyphens) long. It should be displayed in five groups separated by hyphens (-). Microsoft GUIDs are sometimes represented with surrounding brace

If you want to generate a new Guid (uniqueidentifier) in SQL server the you can simply use the NEWID() function.

Example

SELECT NEWID()
GO
— This will return a new random uniqueidentifier e.g.
E75B92A3-3299-4407-A913-C5CA196B3CAB

To select this Guid in in a variable

–assign uniqueidentifier in a variable
DECLARE @EmployeeID uniqueidentifier
SET @EmployeeID = NEWID()

You can directly use this with INSERT statement to insert new row in table.

— Inserting data in Employees table.
INSERT INTO Employees
(EmployeeID, Name, Phone)
VALUES
(NEWID(), ‘John Kris’, ’99-99999′)

Happy Coding 🙂