I needed to add a new, autoincrementing, primary key column to a table and have been struggling to figure out how to assign an initial, unique value to each row.
I finally accomplished my task, but feel sure there's an easier way. Here is my solution: 1. Add the column: alter table mytable add mycolumn int auto_increment; 2. Set up a user variable: @mycounter = 0; 3. Assign the initial values by incrementing the counter: Update mytable set mycolumn = max((@mycounter := @mycounter + 1), @mycounter); 4. Finally, set the column to be the primary key: alter table mytable set primary key mycolumn; This seems like a roundabout way of doing things. Can any of you improve on it? Thanks, John -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
