How To Get the ID Column Auto-Incremented?

Many tables require an ID column to assign a unique ID number for each row in the table. For example, if you have a table to hold forum member profiles, you need an ID number to identify each member. To allow MySQL server to automatically assign a new ID number for each new record, you can define the ID column with AUTO_INCREMENT and PRIMARY KEY attributes as shown in the following sample script:


  include "mysql_connection.php";
  $sql = "CREATE TABLE fyi_users ("
      . " id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT"
      . ", name VARCHAR(80) NOT NULL"
      . ", email VARCHAR(80)"
      . ", time TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP()"
      . ", PRIMARY KEY (id)"
      . ")";
  if (mysql_query($sql, $con)) {
    print("Table fyi_users created.\n");
  } else {
    print("Table creation failed.\n");
  }
  mysql_close($con);
?>
If you run this script, a new table will be created with ID column defined as auto-increment. The sample script below inserts two records with ID values assigned by MySQL server:


If you run this script, you will get something like this:

1 rows inserted.
1 rows inserted.
1, John King, 2006-07-01 23:02:39
2, Nancy Greenberg, 2006-07-01 23:02:39