MySQL - retrospectively add ID that AUTO_INCREMENTs - mysql

Question

I have table with lots of rows, and there is no id column. I'd like to go back and:
add an ID column as PRIMARY KEY with AUTO_INCREMENT
more importantly, retrospectively add an ID for all the existing rows, from oldest to newest (there is an 'updatetime' column).
Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Let's consider the following example:
CREATE TABLE your_table (some_value int, updatetime datetime);
INSERT INTO your_table VALUES (100, '2010-08-11 12:09:00');
INSERT INTO your_table VALUES (300, '2010-08-11 12:08:00');
INSERT INTO your_table VALUES (200, '2010-08-11 12:07:00');
INSERT INTO your_table VALUES (400, '2010-08-11 12:06:00');
INSERT INTO your_table VALUES (600, '2010-08-11 12:05:00');
INSERT INTO your_table VALUES (500, '2010-08-11 12:04:00');
INSERT INTO your_table VALUES (800, '2010-08-11 12:03:00');
First we can add the id column:
ALTER TABLE your_table ADD id int unsigned;
Now the table looks like this:
SELECT * FROM your_table;
+------------+---------------------+------+
| some_value | updatetime | id |
+------------+---------------------+------+
| 100 | 2010-08-11 12:09:00 | NULL |
| 300 | 2010-08-11 12:08:00 | NULL |
| 200 | 2010-08-11 12:07:00 | NULL |
| 400 | 2010-08-11 12:06:00 | NULL |
| 600 | 2010-08-11 12:05:00 | NULL |
| 500 | 2010-08-11 12:04:00 | NULL |
| 800 | 2010-08-11 12:03:00 | NULL |
+------------+---------------------+------+
7 rows in set (0.00 sec)
Then we can UPDATE the id column with the row number when the result set is ordered by the updatetime column:
SET #row_number := 0;
UPDATE your_table
SET your_table.id = (#row_number := #row_number + 1)
ORDER BY your_table.updatetime;
Now the table looks like this:
SELECT * FROM your_table ORDER BY id;
+------------+---------------------+----+
| some_value | updatetime | id |
+------------+---------------------+----+
| 800 | 2010-08-11 12:03:00 | 1 |
| 500 | 2010-08-11 12:04:00 | 2 |
| 600 | 2010-08-11 12:05:00 | 3 |
| 400 | 2010-08-11 12:06:00 | 4 |
| 200 | 2010-08-11 12:07:00 | 5 |
| 300 | 2010-08-11 12:08:00 | 6 |
| 100 | 2010-08-11 12:09:00 | 7 |
+------------+---------------------+----+
Then we can set the id column as the primary key, and make it NOT NULL and AUTO_INCREMENT:
ALTER TABLE your_table
MODIFY id int unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, ADD PRIMARY KEY (id);
This is the new description of the table:
DESCRIBE your_table;
+------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| some_value | int(11) | YES | | NULL | |
| updatetime | datetime | YES | | NULL | |
| id | int(10) unsigned | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
+------------+------------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
3 rows in set (0.04 sec)
We can now try to INSERT a new row in the table to confirm that AUTO_INCREMENT is working as expected:
INSERT INTO your_table (some_value, updatetime)
VALUES (900, '2010-08-11 12:10:00');
SELECT * FROM your_table ORDER BY id;
+------------+---------------------+----+
| some_value | updatetime | id |
+------------+---------------------+----+
| 800 | 2010-08-11 12:03:00 | 1 |
| 500 | 2010-08-11 12:04:00 | 2 |
| 600 | 2010-08-11 12:05:00 | 3 |
| 400 | 2010-08-11 12:06:00 | 4 |
| 200 | 2010-08-11 12:07:00 | 5 |
| 300 | 2010-08-11 12:08:00 | 6 |
| 100 | 2010-08-11 12:09:00 | 7 |
| 900 | 2010-08-11 12:10:00 | 8 |
+------------+---------------------+----+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)
I'm not sure if there is an easier way to tackle this, but this approach seems to do the job.