IgnoreColumnOrder not working with temporal tables

[Kerwin Carpede]

Hi Guys,

We are experiencing major issues managing temporal tables through SSDT. One major issue is that simple column changes are causing table rebuilds.

Problem

Adding columns to temporal tables are triggering table rebuilds which is a big problem for realtime systems or tables with lots of data. IgnoreColumnOrder=True does not work for temporal tables. I tried configuring the desired behaviour by using a publish profile and specifying the property directly ( /p:IgnoreColumnOrder=true ) resulting in the same output.

Change Script Result:

PRINT N'Starting rebuilding table [dbo].[tb_Settings]...';


BEGIN TRANSACTION;

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE;

SET XACT_ABORT ON;

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings] (
    [SettingId]      INT                                         NOT NULL,
    [Key]            NVARCHAR (255)                              NOT NULL,
    [DisplayName]    NVARCHAR (255)                              NOT NULL,
    [Description]    NVARCHAR (MAX)                              NULL,
    [DateTimeValue2] DATETIME2 (2)                               NULL,
    [Value]          NVARCHAR (255)                              NULL,
    [SysStart]       DATETIME2 (2) GENERATED ALWAYS AS ROW START NOT NULL,
    [SysEnd]         DATETIME2 (2) GENERATED ALWAYS AS ROW END   NOT NULL,
    [DateValue]      DATETIME2 (2)                               NULL,
    CONSTRAINT [tmp_ms_xx_constraint_PK_SettingId1] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([SettingId] ASC),
    PERIOD FOR SYSTEM_TIME ([SysStart], [SysEnd])
)
WITH (SYSTEM_VERSIONING = ON (HISTORY_TABLE=[dbo].[tb_Settings_HISTORY], DATA_CONSISTENCY_CHECK=ON));

IF EXISTS (SELECT TOP 1 1
           FROM   [dbo].[tb_Settings])
    BEGIN
        IF EXISTS (SELECT TOP 1 1
                   FROM   [sys].[tables]
                   WHERE  [name] = N'tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings'
                          AND SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id) = N'dbo'
                          AND temporal_type = 2)
            BEGIN
                ALTER TABLE [dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings] SET (SYSTEM_VERSIONING = OFF);
            END
        IF EXISTS (SELECT TOP 1 1
                   FROM   [sys].[periods]
                   WHERE  [period_type] = 1
                          AND OBJECT_ID('[dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings]', 'U') = object_id)
            BEGIN
                ALTER TABLE [dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings] DROP PERIOD FOR SYSTEM_TIME;
            END
        INSERT INTO [dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings] ([SettingId], [Key], [DisplayName], [Description], [Value], [DateTimeValue2], [SysStart], [SysEnd], [DateValue])
        SELECT   [SettingId],
                 [Key],
                 [DisplayName],
                 [Description],
                 [Value],
                 [DateTimeValue2],
                 [SysStart],
                 [SysEnd],
                 [DateValue]
        FROM     [dbo].[tb_Settings]
        ORDER BY [SettingId] ASC;
        ALTER TABLE [dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings]
            ADD PERIOD FOR SYSTEM_TIME (SysStart, SysEnd);
        ALTER TABLE [dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings] SET (SYSTEM_VERSIONING = ON (HISTORY_TABLE=[dbo].[tb_Settings_HISTORY], DATA_CONSISTENCY_CHECK=ON));
    END

IF EXISTS (SELECT TOP 1 1
           FROM   [sys].[tables]
           WHERE  [name] = N'tb_Settings'
                  AND SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id) = N'dbo'
                  AND temporal_type = 2)
    BEGIN
        ALTER TABLE [dbo].[tb_Settings] SET (SYSTEM_VERSIONING = OFF);
    END

DROP TABLE [dbo].[tb_Settings];

EXECUTE sp_rename N'[dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_tb_Settings]', N'tb_Settings';

EXECUTE sp_rename N'[dbo].[tmp_ms_xx_constraint_PK_SettingId1]', N'PK_SettingId', N'OBJECT';

COMMIT TRANSACTION;

SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ COMMITTED;

Testing

Tested using SQLPackage 18.5 and 18.5.1.

Please advise if this can be resolved in the next version of SQLPackage / DacFx.

[Erik Ejlskov Jensen]

What is the definition of the column you are adding?

[Kerwin Carpede]

[DateTimeValue2] DATETIME2 (2) NULL,

Just re-ordering the columns in the temporal table triggers a rebuild. IgnoreColumnOrder works fine for normal tables.

[Drew Skwiers-Koballa]

closing instead of transferring since a duplicate exists on dacfx repo