Negative values for RowModCtr col in sysobjects tbl

[luke]

Could anyone, please, explain to me why I have negative values in
RowModCtr column in sysobjects table? I have tested that after I update
statistics the RowModCtr column is reset to 0. But why do I have
negative values in the first place? Thx.

[Simon Hayes]

"luke" <sv****@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:11**********************@g49g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...

Could anyone, please, explain to me why I have negative values in
RowModCtr column in sysobjects table? I have tested that after I update
statistics the RowModCtr column is reset to 0. But why do I have
negative values in the first place? Thx.

No idea; and I guess you mean sysindexes, not sysobjects? But Books Online
says that the value should be correct since the last time the statistics
were updated (see "sysindexes"), so you might want to look at
"sp_updatestats" and "update statistics". See also p.848 of "Inside SQL
Server 2000", which mentions rowmodctr, and says that when you update
statistics, it's set to zero.

If this doesn't help, I suggest you give some more details - what version of
MSSQL, why the sysindexes value is a problem for you etc.

Simon

[JulieR]

I too have seen negative numbers in the sysindexes table. After reasearching I found:

There is one row in SYSINDEXES for each index and statistics set (if the table does not have a clustered index then there is a row corresponding to the heap as well), and SQL Server 2000 maintains the amount of change for indexes and statistics separately (although this was not true in SQL Server 7.0). Throughout the INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE queries performed in a table, the rowmodctr value is increased only for the index ID 0 or 1 (there is always only one on a table). For the rest of the indexes and statistics, it shows only a relative value that has to be added to the rowmodctr of the index 0 or 1 to get the true number of changed rows for this index.

For examples and more info go to the following site, the info is near the bottom of the article :)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de.../statquery.asp