I have a problem that whenever I delete a row, the row ID corresponding to that row gets deleted, but I don't want this. What I want is if any row is deleted, then other rows after that row should shift one (the no. of rows deleted) position up.
Example:
Suppose there is a user table(id and name)
id(auto incremented primary key) name
1 xyz
2 aaa
3 ray
4 mark
5 allen
now delete row with id=3 and table should look like
id(auto incremented primary key) name
1 xyz
2 aaa
3 mark
4 allen
Is there any way to accomplish this?
No! Don't do this!
Your Autoincrement ID is the IDENTITY of a row. Other tables use this ID to refer to a certain row. If you update the ID, you would have to update all other tables referencing this row, which is not at all the point of a relational database.
Furthermore, there never is a need to do this: you won't run out of autoincrement columns fast (and if you do, just pick a bigger datatype).
An autoincrement ID is a purely technical number, your application users should never see or use it. If you want to display an identificator to your users, add another column!
You've completely got the wrong end of the stick. Auto numbers should not be changed as this would break the link between any other referencing tables.
What you want, by the sounds of it, is a row counter, not a primary key.
While its generally not recommended to change these values, there do exists instances where you may need to change them. If you have the appropriate Foreign Key relationships setup to cascade on UPDATE then you could do this. Granted you need to be 100% all FK relationships are defined as expected.
Related
I have a child table named case_parties, that consists of the name and address of each plaintiff and defendant to court cases.
The table columns include:
case_id, which is a foreign key to the parent table
party_type, which has coded field values of either 1 or 2 (1 indicating a plaintiff and 2 indicating a defendant). The caveat is that there is not always just 1 plaintiff and 1 defendant in every court case. Often, there are multiple plaintiffs and or multiple defendants in a single case. There can be anywhere from 1 to 1,000 + plaintiffs and or defendants on any given case. I created a new column, lets call it party_id and SET it with a CONCAT on the case_id and party_type columns. Therefore, matching rows in this column include either all the plaintiffs or all the defendants to a given case_id.
To create a simple unique key for each row, I want to run a script that adds an auto generated incremental number or letter to the end of the matching party_id field. For example, if there are 4 plaintiffs in the same court case, there are now 4 columns with matching party_id field values, with the last character being 1, representing the party is a plaintiff;
I want to add an increment on so each column is unique and the last two digits of the 4 rows would reflect something like this: "1A", "1B", "1C", "1D" or "1-1", "1-2", "1-3", "1-4",...etc. I'm thinking adding incremental numbers might be easier than adding incremental letters. No other column values individually or collectively make for an efficient composite index in this case. I'm seeking assistance with auto incrementing the matching column values and would greatly appreciate any assistance. Thank you.
I would suggest creating a separate table to represent the defendant/plaintiffs and have a type column in there. Then have a primary key on that table with a regular auto-increment.
You can then use that as your ID in the case_parties table (a foreign key) and it will address your issue with uniquely identifying each one.
To make this quick : Primary key ID column has auto increment but I also have another column called transaction ID, which is not unique, and can be 1 for 3 rows, then 2 for 4 rows, 3 for another say 2 rows and so on.
Is it ok to get MAX(transaction_id) and ++ ? Somewhere here it was said that there might be a lock problem when 2 or 3 users initiate a new transaction, so they can use same transaction_id. I cannot use AUTO_INCREMENT on this one. Am I right or wrong ?
Thanks,
Adrian
i have another field that describes the owner of the transaction_id...so even if there are transaction_id's with same value, the owner will be different...just worrying too much about the AUTO_INCREMENT feature :)))
cheers
How would I ensure that when something is deleted in a database the id of the records are changed so I get a continuous, consecutive collection of ids, e.g. I have a record with ID 1 and another record with ID 2 and another with ID 3, when 2 is deleted, how can I ensure that the ID of the record '3' will now be '2'.
You normally don't, in particular if this is a primary key and even more so if it is used as a foreign key (then you will need to change it everywhere it is referenced).
Having "holes" in your table is not an operational issue at all.
Let $deleted_id be the ID of the record you deleted.
UPDATE yourtable SET id = id - 1 WHERE id > $deleted_id
But please be aware that you also have to update all references to your IDs, if any exist.
Your not supposed to do this with Primary Keys as it would effect other records in tables that are joined.
Maybe if you have a specific reason for doing this then we can help?
Hello is it possible to save the deleted auto incremented primary key in my database. For example
I have
Name_ID
1
2
3
4
If I delete primary key 4 and I insert again the primary key of I inserted should be four.
so. Name 1 2 3 4 5
I deleted primary key 5 (Name 1 2 3 4)
I added a data primary key should be 5 again not 6. THANKS!
Auto generated fields always have gaps in these cases.
What if you have an audit or history table that stored the rows with ID = 4, ID = 5? Then delete them again? How do you differentiate rows?
In your example, you've only deleted the last row? What is you delete ID = 1? Then what?
That is, they are just internal numbers unique to that table (and any associated tables like audit ones): no external meaning should be attached
As with other comments and answers here, I would not recommend this, especially if the data in the auto increment column is referenced externally, but you can set the next auto increment number to a specific value via an ALTER TABLE query
ALTER TABLE T_YourTable AUTO_INCREMENT=4
You could also drop the column and then re-add the column with the same attributes (this could be expensive if you have a lot of rows).
Why?
It's only intended to be a unique identifier.
You'll also get gaps with database clusters and whenever you rollback an insert transaction which overlaps a commited transaction - not just when you delete data.
A mechanism to fill-in-the-gaps would be complex, slow and difficult to maintain - and it's not needed.
I have a table with an auto_increment field and sometimes rows get deleted so auto_increment leaves gaps. Is there any way to avoid this or if not, at the very least, how to write an SQL query that:
Alters the auto_increment value to be the max(current value) + 1
Return the new auto_increment value?
I know how to write part 1 and 2 but can I put them in the same query?
If that is not possible:
How do I "select" (return) the auto_increment value or auto_increment value + 1?
Renumbering will cause confusion. Existing reports will refer to record 99, and yet if the system renumbers it may renumber that record to 98, now all reports (and populated UIs) are wrong. Once you allocate a unique ID it's got to stay fixed.
Using ID fields for anything other than simple unique numbering is going to be problematic. Having a requirement for "no gaps" is simply inconsistent with the requirement to be able to delete. Perhaps you could mark records as deleted rather than delete them. Then there are truly no gaps. Say you are producing numbered invoices: you would have a zero value cancelled invoice with that number rather than delete it.
There is a way to manually insert the id even in an autoinc table. All you would have to do is identify the missing id.
However, don't do this. It can be very dangerous if your database is relational. It is possible that the deleted id was used elsewhere. When removed, it would not present much of an issue, perhaps it would orphan a record. If replaced, it would present a huge issue because the wrong relation would be present.
Consider that I have a table of cars and a table of people
car
carid
ownerid
name
person
personid
name
And that there is some simple data
car
1 1 Van
2 1 Truck
3 2 Car
4 3 Ferrari
5 4 Pinto
person
1 Mike
2 Joe
3 John
4 Steve
and now I delete person John.
person
1 Mike
2 Joe
4 Steve
If I added a new person, Jim, into the table, and he got an id which filled the gap, then he would end up getting id 3
1 Mike
2 Joe
3 Jim
4 Steve
and by relation, would be the owner of the Ferrari.
I generally agree with the wise people on this page (and duplicate questions) advising against reusing auto-incremented id's. It is good advice, but I don't think it's up to us to decide the rights or wrongs of asking the question, let's assume the developer knows what they want to do and why.
The answer is, as mentioned by Travis J, you can reuse an auto-increment id by including the id column in an insert statement and assigning the specific value you want.
Here is a point to put a spanner in the works: MySQL itself (at least 5.6 InnoDB) will reuse an auto-increment ID in the following circumstance:
delete any number rows with the highest auto-increment id
Stop and start MySQL
insert a new row
The inserted row will have an id calculated as max(id)+1, it does not continue from the id that was deleted.
As djna said in her/his answer, it's not a good practice to alter database tables in such a way, also there is no need to that if you have been choosing the right scheme and data types. By the way according to part od your question:
I have a table with an auto_increment field and sometimes rows get deleted so auto_increment leaves gaps. Is there any way to avoid this?
If your table has too many gaps in its auto-increment column, probably as a result of so many test INSERT queries
And if you want to prevent overwhelming id values by removing the gaps
And also if the id column is just a counter and has no relation to any other column in your database
, this may be the thing you ( or any other person looking for such a thing ) are looking for:
SOLUTION
remove the original id column
add it again using auto_increment on
But if you just want to reset the auto_increment to the first available value:
ALTER TABLE `table_name` AUTO_INCREMENT=1
not sure if this will help, but in sql server you can reseed the identity fields. It seems there's an ALTER TABLE statement in mySql to acheive this. Eg to set the id to continue at 59446.
ALTER TABLE table_name AUTO_INCREMENT = 59446;
I'm thinking you should be able to combine a query to get the largest value of auto_increment field, and then use the alter table to update as needed.