This may be simplistic and I may be missing the original concept of what we are talking about, but I think you can update the nulls with <BR><BR> SET <this column> = MAX(<this column>)+1, ... etc<br><br> that would store the next available value to the column for you (just make VERY sure you get the WHERE clause right or you get extremenely wierd numbering)<br><br>still on the right track?