MySQL: retrieving the newest inserted data - mysql

After inserting new data into a table, I need to select some of the new data straight after, so I can use it for inserting into another table.
The only way I can think of doing this is using the 'datetime' field I have in my row, but how would I retrieve the latest date/time inserted.
INSERT statement with NOW() value for datetime
society_select = SELECT socID, creator, datetime FROM societies.society WHERE datetime='[..datetime is the newest...]';
Hope that makes sense. Thank you

There are a number of ways to do this.
Why not make use of a trigger for this?
When a trigger creates a record you can get the id's of the records inserted. You can then do a select and insert new values into the relevant table.
MYSQL has loads of resources on using triggers.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/triggers.html
Or you can get the number of rows affected then use this to get the required result set in a select statement.
Get the last inserted ID?
If you are inserting one row into the database at a time then you would be able to get the last inserted id from MYSQL. This will be the Primary Key value of the record you last inserted into the database.
You would basically do something like this in mysql:
SET #inserted_id = LAST_INSERT_ID();
Or in PHP you can use the function:
mysql_insert_id(&mysql);
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/getting-unique-id.html

Sort the results by their datetime in descending order, and select the first of them.
society_select = SELECT socID, creator, datetime FROM societies.society ORDER BY datetime DESC LIMIT 1;

you can use this with an auto increment filed. after inserting data you can retrieve the list inserted id from the table. and use that id to get the latest record.

A trigger as suggested is an option. If you don't want to use that for some kind of reason you can:
Add an integer primary key with auto_increment as ID and sort it DESC (e.g. INT(11))
Sort descending on a timestamp column (ofcourse with an index on it)

Use a trigger after inserting the data. This is for sure the cleaner way.
Another option is to use a method like mysql_insert_id. Assumed that you use PHP. There are of course equivalent methods in other languages as well.
Sorting is not an option(if not wrapped smart in transaction) - If you have multiple writes and reads on the table this might end up pretty ugly.

Related

Can I add rows to MySQL before removing all old rows (except same primary)?

If I have a table that has these rows:
animal (primary)
-------
man
dog
cow
and I want to delete all the rows and insert my new rows (that may contain some of the same data), such as:
animal (primary)
-------
dog
chicken
wolf
I could simply do something like:
delete from animal;
and then insert the new rows.
But when I do that, for a split second, 'dog' won't be accessible through the SELECT statement.
I could simply insert ignore the new data and then delete the rest, one by one, but that doesn't feel like the right solution when I have a lot of rows.
Is there a way to insert the new data and then have MySQL automatically delete the rest afterward?
I have a program that selects data from this table every 5 minutes (and the code I'm writing now will be updating this table once every 30 minutes), so I would like to be as accurate as possible at all times, and I would rather have too many rows for a split second than too few rows for the same time.
Note: I know that this may seem like it is unnecessary but I just feel like if I leave too many of those unlikely possibilities in different places, there will be times where things go wrong.
You may want to use TRUNCATE instead of DELETE here. TRUNCATE is faster than DELETE and resets the table back to its empty state (meaning IDENTITY columns are reset to original values as well).
Not sure why you're having problems with selecting a value that was deleted and re-added, maybe I'm missing some context. But if you're wiping the table clean, you might want to use truncate instead.
You could add another column timestamp and change the select statement to accommodate this scenario where it needs to check for the latest value.
If this is for school, I would argue that you need a timestamp and that is what your professor is looking for. You shouldn't need to truncate a table to get the latest values, you need to adjust the thinking behind the table and how you are querying data. Hope this helps!
Check out these:
How to make a mysql table with date and time columns?
Why not update values instead?
My other questions would be:
How are you loading this into the table?
What does that code look like?
Can you change the way you Select from the table?
What values are being "updated" and change in such a way that you need to truncate the entire table?
If you don't want to add new column, there is an other method.
1. At first step, update table in any way that mark all existing rows for deletion in future. For example:
UPDATE `table_name` SET `animal`=CONCAT('MUST_BE_DELETED_', `animal`)
At second step, insert new rows.
On final step, remove all marked rows:
DELETE FROM `table_name` WHERE `animal` LIKE 'MUST_BE_DELETED_%'
You could implement this by having the updated_on column as timestamp and you may even utilize some default values, but let's go with an example without them.
I presume the table would look something like this:
CREATE TABLE `new_table` (
`animal` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
`updated_on` timestamp,
PRIMARY KEY (`animal`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB
This is just a dummy table example. What's important are the two queries later on.
You would simply perform a query to insert the data, such as:
insert into my_table(animal)
select animal from my_view where animal = 'dogs'
on duplicate key update
updated_on = current_timestamp;
Please notice that my_view is your table/view/query by which you supply the values to insert into your table. Also notice that you need to have primary/unique key constraint on your animal column in this example, in order to work.
Then, you proceed with the following query, to "purge" (delete) the old values:
delete from my_table
where updated_on < (
select *
from (
select max(updated_on) from my_table
) as max_date
);
Please notice that you could make a separate view in order to obtain this max_date value for updated_on entry. This entry should indicate the timestamp for your last updated/inserted values in a previous query, so you could proceed with utilizing it in a where clause in order to issue deletion of old records that you don't want/need anymore.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Since you are doing multiple queries and it's supposed to be a single operation, I'd advise you to utilize it within a single trancations and to utilize a proper rollback on various potential outcomes (i.e. in case of mysql exceptions). You might wish to utilize a proper stored procedure for that.

MySQL LAST_INSERT_ID() question potential

If i have insert query for example:
INSERT INTO user(username) VALUES('admin');
And then get the id of the inserted record with
LAST_INSERT_ID();
Looks find but what happens if between the insert and LAST_INSERT_ID() another insert is executed.
How MySQL knows to return the correct id (for the first or second insert) since no parameter is passed to LAST_INSERT_ID();
Is it save to use this function?
Thanks
I'm supposing that you mean what happen if i'm connected to the MySQL server and executing an INSERT but others are also doing insert, like updating a table on a website while client are currently using it.
If you go take a look at the documentation https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/information-functions.html there is a point that answers your questions:
The ID that was generated is maintained in the server on a
per-connection basis. This means that the value returned by the
function to a given client is the first AUTO_INCREMENT value generated
for most recent statement affecting an AUTO_INCREMENT column by that
client. This value cannot be affected by other clients, even if they
generate AUTO_INCREMENT values of their own. This behavior ensures
that each client can retrieve its own ID without concern for the
activity of other clients, and without the need for locks or
transactions.
This should be the same in MariaDB.
As discussed in the comment, you are wondering if you can use this in a php PDO environment. If you mean to use this directly from the database, it's a no, you won't be able to have the last inserted ID because you won't have the same client connection as PDO. If you want to use it directly from PDO please use the specific PDO function: http://php.net/manual/fr/pdo.lastinsertid.php , this should allow to do what you want.
If you insert multiple rows into a table using a single INSERT query, the LAST_INSERT_ID function returns the last insert id of the first row.
i.e
If your table id has 3 as column value and you will insert 4 rows in a single query then LAST_INSERT_ID will give you 4 instead of 7
If you insert 4 rows in 4 different insert query then LAST_INSERT_ID will give you 7
last_insert_id( ) Or mysqli_insert_id( ) will always return the id of last or most recent query. And also be noted that id field must have AUTO_INCREMENT enabled.
It doesn't give you the freedom to choose any specific table. Or you can't have id which is generated from your previous query.
So, from this point it serves a very small purpose. Only the last id, it doesn't matter which table.
To get last id from any specific table this query would be helpful : "SELECT id FROM table_name ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1"

How can I get a newly inserted auto increment value?

Say a table T with a PRIMARY KEY id, I set it to AUTO INCREMENT.
I need to get the newly INSERTED id value for other operation, however, since it's the only PRIMARY KEY and AUTO INCREMENT, I don't how to do it.
Another SELECT with all other values in WHERE is valid in theory, but it's too slow.
Any better ideas?
Should you be checking LAST_INSERT_ID() like
select LAST_INSERT_ID();
Does this not work?
select max(id) from T;
This will produce the last id without functions
SELECT id FROM t ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1
By the way .. You should get the id after your insert statement from any MySQL api
It obviously depends on what database engine you use.
If , like I suppose, We are speaking about MSSQL, a good practise is to return last id generated in the current transaction (or session). You could see this post for more info.
Anyway, you could calculate the max id, but whitout warranties if someone instert new row in the while.

Is it possible to insert a new row at top of MySQL table?

All rows in MySQL tables are being inserted like this:
1
2
3
Is there any way how to insert new row at a top of table so that table looks like this?
3
2
1
Yes, yes, I know "order by" but let me explain the problem. I have a dating website and users can search profiles by sex, age, city, etc. There are more than 20 search criteria and it's not possible to create indexes for each possible combination. So, if I use "order by", the search usually ends with "using temporary, using filesort" and this causes a very high server load. If I remove "order by" oldest profiles are shown as first and users have to go to the last page to see the new profiles. That's very bad because first pages of search results always look the same and users have a feeling that there are no new profiles. That's why I asked this question. If it's not possible to insert last row at top of table, can you suggest anything else?
The order in which the results are returned when there's no ORDER BY clause depends on the RDBM. In the case of MySQL, or at least most engines, if you don't explicitly specify the order it will be ascending, from oldest to new entries. Where the row is located "physically" doesn't matter. I'm not sure if all mysql engines work that way though. I.e., in PostgreSQL the "default" order shows the most recently updated rows first. This might be the way some of the MySQL engines work too.
Anyway, the point is - if you want the results ordered - always specify sort order, don't just depend on something default that seems to work. In you case you want something trivial - you want the users in descending order, so just use:
SELECT * FROM users ORDER BY id DESC
I think you just need to make sure that if you always need to show the latest data first, all of your indexes need to specify the date/time field first, and all of your queries order by that field first.
If ORDER BY is slowing everything down then you need to optimise your queries or your database structure, i would say.
Maybe if you add the id 'by hand', and give it a negative value, but i (and probably nobody) would recommend you to do that:
Regular insert, e.g.
insert into t values (...);
Update with set, e.g.
update t set id = -id where id = last_insert_id();
Normally you specify a auto_incrementing primary key.
However, you can just specify the primary key like so:
CREATE TABLE table1 (
id signed integer primary key default 1, <<-- no auto_increment, but has a default value
other fields .....
Now add a BEFORE INSERT trigger that changes the primary key.
DELIMITER $$
CREATE TRIGGER ai_table1_each BEFORE INSERT ON table1 FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
DECLARE new_id INTEGER;
SELECT COALESCE(MIN(id), 0) -1 INTO new_id FROM table1;
SET NEW.id = new_id;
END $$
DELIMITER ;
Now your id will start at -1 and run down from there.
The insert trigger will make sure no concurrency problems occur.
I know that a lot of time has passed since the above question was asked. But I have something to add to the comments:
I'm using MySQL version: 5.7.18-0ubuntu0.16.04.1
When no ORDER BY clause is used with SELECT it is noticeable that records are displayed, regardless of the order in which they are added, in the table's Prime Key sequence.

MySQL INSERT IGNORE without TimeStamp

Good evening, I have one table, with a timestamp column, then I have a tool to insert into this table N registries. To avoid duplicate information in this table, I've used INSERT IGNORE, but of course as you can imagine with the timestamp attribute always the new row is different. I cannot make a previous search and check the result set in my code, because I'm adding all the queries into a statement batch, that's why I'm using INSERT IGNORE.
So the question would be, it is possible avoid the timestamp column when I'm making a compare between the new row and all the previous already inserted? the first time that used the tool?
Regards!.
Create a unique key on the fields you don't want duplicated, and exclude the timestamp field from that key.