We add an auto_increment BIGINT to every table we create. This gives us the essence and utility of ROWID (BTW we always name the first column in a new table 'row_id').
Just my 2 cents Pat... [EMAIL PROTECTED] CocoNet Corporation SW Florida's First ISP 825 SE 47th Terrace Cape Coral, FL 33904 (239) 540-2626 Voice ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeremy Zawodny" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Mike Brando" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 8:49 PM Subject: Re: ROWID > On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 01:02:31PM -0800, Mike Brando wrote: > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 09:59:41AM -0800, Wan, Wenhua wrote: > > > > Hi there, > > > > > > > > Both Oracle and Informix use ROWID to uniquely represent the location of > > > > each row of data in a table. ROWID is basically a hidden column or > > > > pseudocolumn for each table, and it is the fastest way to retrive a row > > > from > > > > a table. Does MySql have similar field? If is, what's the name and how > > > to > > > > access it? > > > > > > > > Thank you very much in advance for your advice. > > > > > > http://www.mysql.com/doc/search.php?q=rowid > > > > > > > > > Ok, so that search produces this: > > > > " If the PRIMARY or UNIQUE key consists of only one column and this is of type > > integer, you can also refer to it as _rowid (new in Version 3.23.11)." > > Yes. > > > But that's not what a "ROWID" is compared to what I think the > > original poster was looking for. > > One hopes he figured that out after reading the description. > > > In Oracle for example, a ROWID is the unique address of a row in the > > database. Every row, unique key or not has a unique address. Is > > there such a thing in MySQL? > > No. If there was it'd be documented. But at lesat with MyISAM > tables, MySQL cannot guarantee the "address" (or row number) of a > row. An ALTER/REPAIR/OPTIMIZE may reorder the rows. > > > ROWIDs are extremely useful for guaranteeing that you are > > manipulating the exact row that you think you are. > > So I've been told. > > Jeremy > -- > Jeremy D. Zawodny | Perl, Web, MySQL, Linux Magazine, Yahoo! > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | http://jeremy.zawodny.com/ > > MySQL 4.0.15-Yahoo-SMP: up 55 days, processed 2,063,471,142 queries (433/sec. avg) > > -- > MySQL General Mailing List > For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql > To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] > -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
