Business Central — How to change primary key of a record

2 min readMar 10, 2022

Typically when we want to update the contents of a record in BC, we would just use the modify function. For most cases, that would suffice, but what happens if the field you want to update is part of a composite primary key? Or when updating a record in which the content to be changed includes part of a primary key? In these scenarios, using the modify function will return an error. The solution? Read on!

Sample Record Structure

Here is a sample record structure for reference. In this case, we have a composite key consisting of “Entry No.” and “Line No.” as well as other data fields.

table 55047 "Sample Line Data" 
{ 
  fields 
  { 
    field(1; "Entry No."; Integer) { Caption = 'Entry No.'; } 
    field(2; "Line No."; Integer) { Caption = 'Line No.'; } 
    field(3; "Item Code"; Code[10]) { Caption = 'Item Code'; } 
    field(4; "Item Description"; Text[50]) 
    { Caption = 'Item   Description'; } 
  } 
  keys 
  { 
    key(PK; "Entry No.", "Line No.") { Clustered = true; } 
  } 
}

So what should we do if we need to change the following data: “Line No.” and “Item Description”?

We use the Rename function to update the “Line No.” which is part of the primary key, then re-retrieve the record and update the “Item Description” using the modify function.

The syntax for Rename function as show below.

[Ok := ] Record.Rename(Value1: Any [, Value2: Any,...])

Code example as show below.

// #1 change part of primary key, line no from 1000 to 2000 
if MyRecord.Get(1,1000) then 
  MyRecord.Rename(MyRecord."Entry No.", 2000); // #2 get record again with new key 
if MyRecord.Get(1, 2000) then 
  begin // #3 update item description (non key field) 
    MyRecord."Item Description" := 'Changed Description';
    MyRecord.Modify(); 
  end;

Remember, do not change the sequence of the primary key!

aka plaindoufu View all posts by doufu

Originally published at http://doufu.wordpress.com on March 10, 2022.

Business Central — How to change primary key of a record

Written by Doufu