On Tue, 6 Dec 2005 15:56:01 +0100, "Peter Danes"
wrote:

The gaps got there in the first place because the owner of the database is a
scientist, not a computer tech.

Well, so am I, if it comes to that (Ph.D. Chemistry, Berkeley 1972).
No academic training in computers beyond a Fortran course back in
1968.

It doesn't really address the issue of why NEW records should backfill
the holes left in this earlier process, but by all means, if that's
what they want, you clearly have several sets of tools to do so. Just
another one for the toolkit: I routinely include a table Num with a
single field N, values 0 to 65536 or so. An "unmatched" query joining
Num to the table will very promptly provide all unused numbers, which
can then be assigned to new records.

John W. Vinson[MVP]