Auto_increment functionality !!

[wap3]

Hi

Ok so here is my problem. I have a database with a table named items with a field named Item_ID. This field is set as auto increment. When I enter data into my database however it does not get the last number entered and add one to it, which I thought it would do.

It seems to remember the previous number used. Which is not good because in the meantime if I add and delete records as you do. Then look at the table I end up with gaps in the numers. i.e the Item_ID column will go 12, 13, 26,27, 190 ... you get what I mean.

Its just abit anoying cos to me its a waste. Is there a way to set-up the auto-increment to work like that ??

I have no idea if this is possible but I am just wondering.

Thanks

:thumbsup:

[Wichetael]

It is normal functionality and to my knowledge you can't use it otherwise.

But why would this be bad? in my opinion it's a good thing. This way you'll never have some old unremoved reference (to some data that was removed) that is pointing to the wrong data in your database...

And I don't think it's that much of a waste really

[Ökii]

As wichetael said, having it so that it used any missing numbers could easily result in a badly linked site.
If there was a page that linked to show_items?id=77 and you deleted 77, you could either never fill that slot or overwrite it.
If you never used it again, trying to access the page would output your row_not_found message.
If you overwrote it, your visitors might get weird items when looking for normal ones.

I find it best to delete and then recreate all db tables just before going live. This resets auto-inc to zero ready for refilling properly.

You could also count all rows returned and minus that from the highest id number to find how many rows you'd ever deleted.

[wap3]

Yer i see what your saying but I just didn't expect it to be like that I don't really know why but hey ...

I guessed I thought if you had a limit set on the auto increment field then it would fill up sooner than it needed to.
And because of the way of my pages are set-up and run you wouldn't end up with broken links etc.

Anyway thats that then . . . :cool: