SQL Server 2008: sequence which restarts daily

I have to add a trigger which should update a column using the following format strings: _, e.g 2015-10-01_36. Ids must be incremental and gaps are allowed.

My approach is rather naive: make a table with current date and current sequence value and maintain a single record in it:

create table DailySequence
(
    date date,
    sequence int
)

insert into DailySequence values (getdate(), 1);

CREATE TRIGGER MakeHumanReadableId ON dbo.AuditMeasures
FOR INSERT
AS
    DECLARE @ret int;
    DECLARE @tempDate date;
    DECLARE @nowDate date;

    SET @nowDate = getdate();

    SELECT @ret = t.sequence, @tempDate = t.date from DailySequence as t;

    IF @nowDate = @tempDate
    BEGIN
        SET @ret = @ret + 1;

        UPDATE DailySequence 
        SET sequence = @ret;
    END
    ELSE
    BEGIN
        SET @ret = 0;

        UPDATE DailySequence 
        SET sequence = @ret, date = @nowDate;
    END

    UPDATE AuditMeasures
    SET [HumanReadableId] = CAST(@nowdate AS VARCHAR(10)) + '_' + CAST(@ret AS VARCHAR(10));
    FROM inserted 
    INNER JOIN AuditMeasures On inserted.id = AuditMeasures.id
GO

Questions:

• Are there any pitfalls for my solution? e.g code inside the trigger won't run inside a transaction thus giving incorrect values.

• Am I missing a better solution?

One potential method of doing this would be (see the better method, at the end):

USE tempdb;

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[tblIDs]
(
    IDName nvarchar(255) NOT NULL
    , LastID int NULL,
    CONSTRAINT [PK_tblIDs] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
    (
        [IDName] ASC
    ) WITH 
    (
        PAD_INDEX = OFF
        , STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF
        , IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF
        , ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON
        , ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON
        , FILLFACTOR = 100
    ) 
);
GO

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[GetNextID](
    @IDName nvarchar(255)
)
AS
BEGIN
    /*
        Description:    Increments and returns the LastID value from 
                                tblIDs for a given IDName
        Author:         Max Vernon / Mike Defehr
        Date:           2012-07-19
    */

    DECLARE @Retry int;
    DECLARE @EN int, @ES int, @ET int;
    SET @Retry = 5;
    DECLARE @NewID int;
    SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE;
    SET NOCOUNT ON;
    WHILE @Retry > 0
    BEGIN
        BEGIN TRY
            UPDATE dbo.tblIDs 
            SET @NewID = LastID = LastID + 1 
            WHERE IDName = @IDName;

            IF @NewID IS NULL
            BEGIN
                SET @NewID = 1;
                INSERT INTO tblIDs (IDName, LastID) VALUES (@IDName, @NewID);
            END
            SET @Retry = -2; /* no need to retry since the operation completed */
        END TRY
        BEGIN CATCH
            IF (ERROR_NUMBER() = 1205) /* DEADLOCK */
                SET @Retry = @Retry - 1;
            ELSE
                BEGIN
                SET @Retry = -1;
                SET @EN = ERROR_NUMBER();
                SET @ES = ERROR_SEVERITY();
                SET @ET = ERROR_STATE()
                RAISERROR (@EN,@ES,@ET);
                END
        END CATCH
    END
    IF @Retry = 0 /* must have deadlock'd 5 times. */
    BEGIN
        SET @EN = 1205;
        SET @ES = 13;
        SET @ET = 1
        RAISERROR (@EN,@ES,@ET);
    END
    ELSE
        SELECT @NewID AS NewID;
END
GO

CREATE TABLE dbo.HumanReadableSequence
(
    HumanReadableSequence_ID VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL
        CONSTRAINT PK_HumanReadableSequence
        PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
    , SomeData VARCHAR(386) NOT NULL
);

GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.HumanReadableSequence_Insert
(
    @SomeData VARCHAR(386)
)
AS
BEGIN
    SET NOCOUNT ON;
    DECLARE @NextID INT;
    DECLARE @Today VARCHAR(20);
    DECLARE @t TABLE 
    (
        ID INT NOT NULL
    );
    SET @Today = (CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), GETDATE(), 101))

    INSERT INTO @t (ID)
    EXEC dbo.GetNextID @IDName = @Today;

    INSERT INTO dbo.HumanReadableSequence (HumanReadableSequence_ID, SomeData)
    SELECT (@Today + '_' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), ID, 0))
        , @SomeData
    FROM @t;
END
GO

EXEC dbo.HumanReadableSequence_Insert N'this is a test';

SELECT *
FROM dbo.HumanReadableSequence;

The results:

Having said all that, I would ask why not simply maintain two separate columns that could be concatenated in the presentation layer:

CREATE TABLE dbo.HumanReadableSequence
(
    CreateDate DATETIME NOT NULL
        CONSTRAINT DF_HumanReadableSequence_CreateDate
        DEFAULT (DATEADD(DAY, 0, DATEDIFF(DAY, 0, GETDATE())))
    , HumanReadableSequence_ID INT NOT NULL
    , SomeData VARCHAR(386) NOT NULL
    , CONSTRAINT PK_HumanReadableSequence
        PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
        (CreateDate, HumanReadableSequence_ID)
);

DECLARE @ID INT;
DECLARE @t TABLE 
(
    ID INT NOT NULL
);
DECLARE @Today VARCHAR(20);
SET @Today = (CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), GETDATE(), 101))

INSERT INTO @t (ID)
EXEC dbo.GetNextID @IDName = @Today;

SELECT @ID = t.ID
FROM @t t;

INSERT INTO dbo.HumanReadableSequence (SomeData, HumanReadableSequence_ID)
VALUES ('This is a test', @ID);

SELECT HumanReadableSequenceValue = 
        REPLACE(CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), hrs.CreateDate, 101) 
        + '_' 
        + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), hrs.HumanReadableSequence_ID, 0), '/', '-')
    , SomeData
FROM dbo.HumanReadableSequence hrs;

The results:

The above method is much more capable of scaling well, and offers flexibility in the presentation of the human readable sequence number.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#116747, answer score: 4