There are a number of options for generating ID values for your
tables. In this post, Alexey Mikotkin of Devart explores your
choices for generating identifiers with a look at auto_increment,
triggers, UUID and sequences.
AUTO_INCREMENT
Frequently, we happen to need to fill tables with unique
identifiers. Naturally, the first example of such identifiers is
PRIMARY KEY data. These are usually integer values hidden from
the user since their specific values are unimportant.
When adding a row to a table, you need to take this new key value
from somewhere. You can set up your own process of generating a
new identifier, but MySQL comes to the aid of the user with the
AUTO_INCREMENT column setting. It is set as a
column attribute and allows you to generate unique integer
identifiers. As an example, consider the …
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