Should I explicitly “SET IDENTITY_INSERT [Table] OFF” after turning “ON”?

Question

Does SET IDENTITY_INSERT [Table] ON persist beyond the scope of a SQL Script? I'm wondering if I need to explicitly set it to "OFF" or if SQL Server knows that it should only use that setting for the current script.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes, it does persist beyond the current batch.

It doesn't, however, persist beyond the current session, so if you disconnect immediately after running it, you don't need to change it.

As an aside, it may only be ON for one table at a time, per session, and as pointed out by Aaron in a comment below, will throw an error if you try setting it for more than one table per session.