You would use a concept called auto-increment, and you can create it when you create your tables:
CREATE TABLE animals ( id MEDIUMINT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, name CHAR(30) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (id) ); More information here: http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/example-AUTO_INCREMENT.html -----Original Message----- From: news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Linus Nikander Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2004 8:31 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Autocolumn and pk I'm pretty new to mySQL so there might be an easy way of solving this (hopefully) Is there a way to create something akin to an Oracle Sequence in mySQL ? I know of the autonumber feature. The problem is that the table that will be using the key won't actually be using it as a unique pk. The pk will instead consist of the autonumber + the value of another column. Thus, using autonumber on a column of the target table isn't really an option. I can think of one way of solving it. I could create a table with a single autonumber column for the sole purpose of generating the numbers (when i need them). That is going to clutter up my tables in the long run though, and isn't really something I want to do. Is that the only viable solution, or is there some functionality that I don't know of which does it better ? //Linus Nikander - [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- 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]