Re: How to force auto-increment field to increase monotonically

[Austin Einter]

It really matters.

lets take an use case. Say in a table I have skill-name and skill-id(auto-increment) coulmn.
So a typical look of my table will be

id name
1 skill1
2 skill2
3 etc....
4
10
11
25
26
27
43
44
45

Now if I am going to add more number of skills , the id coulmn will reach faster to maximum value of integer, thereny next insert will fail.

So either at SQL level, or at program level (using PHP) or whatever, we need to make sure, the id coulmn should increment monotonically, else we will endup facing false insert operations.

Austin



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2011 05:10AM by Austin Einter.