[sql] Safest way to get last record ID from a table

In SQL Server 2008 and higher what is the best/safest/most correct way

1. to retrieve the ID (based on autoincrementing primary key) out of the database table?
2. to retrieve the value of the last row of some other column (like, SELECT TOP 1 FROM Table ORDER BY DESC)?

1.  SELECT MAX(Id) FROM Table

You can try:

SELECT id FROM your_table WHERE id = (SELECT MAX(id) FROM your_table)

Where id is a primary key of the your_table

And if you mean select the ID of the last record inserted, its

SELECT @@IDENTITY FROM table

I think this one will also work:

SELECT * FROM ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 0 , 1

SELECT IDENT_CURRENT('Table')

You can use one of these examples:

SELECT * FROM Table 
WHERE ID = (
    SELECT IDENT_CURRENT('Table'))

SELECT * FROM Table
WHERE ID = (
    SELECT MAX(ID) FROM Table)

SELECT TOP 1 * FROM Table
ORDER BY ID DESC

But the first one will be more efficient because no index scan is needed (if you have index on Id column).

The second one solution is equivalent to the third (both of them need to scan table to get max id).

SELECT LAST(row_name) FROM table_name

One more way -

select * from <table> where  id=(select max(id) from <table>)

Also you can check on this link -

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175098.aspx