I am using MySQL for my database. I have a requirement to store a list of users in the system. The user will have both first name and last name.
I cannot have the first name and second name as the primary key. So I need a indexing key. But I do not want to enter the index value every time to add a new row.
I want the system to handle this with auto increment of previous value every time I try to add a new user. Please let me know how to do this.
Also I am supposed to do a search operation on the list of user with the first name. Please let me know the efficient way to do the search as the number of records could be more than a million.
create table users (
id int primary key auto_increment,
name varchar(64),
...
)
See here for more info
Add an INT() id column with auto_increment set. This way, the id column value will be incremented automatically on each INSERT.
To get a unique key without having to specify it, you need an auto_increment field:
create table people (
person_id int primary key auto_increment,
first_name varchar(50),
: : :
);
For efficiently searching first names, you just need an index on the first-name column. A couple of million rows is not a big table, so this should be reasonably efficient.
create index person_index using btree on people (first_name);
Related
I have an old MS Access DB which I'm translating to a MySQL DB. I used bullzip to create the database but due to bad design the old MS Access database didn't have a unique primary key for most of the tables.
So I've created a id field but obviously it's empty for each entry, I wonder if there's a simple statement I can use to fill them up with 1, 2, 3, 4 etc...
EDIT:
I think I haven't gotten my question across properly. I know all about auto increment. Thats not the problem.
I have a table, full of records which I need kept and which came from a Access database that didn't have a unique id defined as a field. In otherwords I have fields for firstname, surname etc etc but no field 'id'. This seems absolutely crazy but apparently this database has been well used and never had any unique ids for any tables bar one. Weird!
Anyway, I've created a field in the table for id (and set it to auto increment of course) but obviously all the existing records don't have an id set currently. So I need to create one for each record.
Is there a way to fill all these records with unique numbers using a mysql statement?
Cheers
If you add an new id column to an existing table and make it AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, it will automatically populate it with incrementing values.
mysql> ALTER TABLE TheTable ADD COLUMN id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY;
mysql> SELECT id FROM TheTable;
-- outputs values 1, 2, 3, etc.
If you made an id column but didn't declare it AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, you can populate the column like this:
mysql> SET #id := 0;
mysql> UPDATE TheTable SET id = (#id := #id+1);
Use a predefined AUTO_INCREMENT field, and set the value as NULL when inserting new records, so that it automatically builds up an appropriate incrementer. Aside from that, there is no way (unless using a procedure) to create an incrementing set of values
Use the auto_increment feature of MySQL. MySQL will generate unique numbers for your id column.
For an explanation of the auto_increment feature see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/example-auto-increment.html
If you just want a unique identifier, you can use the uuid() function. It takes up a bit more space than an integer, but it does what you want.
However, I agree with the other answers that you should add an auto increment column and repopulate the table. That is the simplest way to keep the ids unique over time, even as updates takes place, and using a more reasonable amount of storage.
I am not proficient in MySQL, but I have faced this same problem in other DBMS's and here is how I have addressed it when there was an AutoIncrement type facility, but the DBMS had no way to automatically apply it retroactively:
Rename the table you want to add the ID field to. So rename Table1 to Table1_Old.
Create a new Table1 that is a copy of Table1_Old except that it has no data in it.
Add your ID/AutoIncrement column to Table1
Now copy all of the data from Table1_Old to Table1, either skipping or specifying NULL for the ID column. (This is usually a single INSERT..SELECT.. command)
Drop Table1_Old.
The actual specifics and commands vary from DBMS to DBMS, but I have usually been able to find a way to do these steps.
Use AUTO_INCREMENT
CREATE TABLE insect
(
id INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
PRIMARY KEY (id),
name VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
date DATE NOT NULL,
origin VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL
);
Update
I believe, it seems tough task unless you won't create new table, I will suggest you to use this
SET #rank=0;
SELECT #rank:=#rank+1 AS rank, itemID FROM orders;
It will create a virtual column with the name rank for you, which have unique id value.
I need that the values for a ColumnID, which is a Primary Key, to start at 100 and increment by 5. This condition is asked to be included as a constraint before populating the tables. I already created the tables, I just need to add that constraint. I know I can't use AUTO_INCREMENT because the increase is only by 1. Is there a way to do it in MySQL?
MySQL does not provide any built-in function to create a sequence for a table's rows or columns. But we can generate it via SQL query.
Example:
Let us understand it with the help of the following example. First, we need to create a new table and make sure that there is one column with the AUTO_INCREMENT attribute and that too, as PRIMARY KEY.
Execute the below query to create a table:
CREATE TABLE Insects (
Id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
Name VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
Type VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
Origin VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL
);
Then you can alter your column to start from another value:
ALTER TABLE Insects AUTO_INCREMENT=100;
You can check it here.
I have a table with the following structure
CREATE TABLE Products (
id INT(6) UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
code VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL UNIQUE,
warranty TINYINT(1) NOT NULL,
producing_country VARCHAR(50),
)
Each product in my table has a unique code and This products is also known in stock as this codes
Codes are something like this: (AR-X22 , RF-3654, ...)
My question is can i remove the ID cloumn in this table? Because it has no special application
And does it hurt if I want to use the code column instead of id in join ?
Its good practice to have a table with an id INT AUTO_INCREMENT and PRIMARY KEY.
It makes sure each row is unique. If other programmers come and look at your table they will expect to see an id column.
Having a VARCHAR as a unique row key is is asking for trouble. There are all sorts of encoding troubles and things that can make strings as identifiers unreliable.
For example: "ABX-112" and "ABX -112" (space hidden in there)
If you just don't want to see ID column do like ravioli states below and just make a new view and not show it.
Good luck.
Your id column is specified as your PK, which means it's used to uniquely identify that row in your table. It looks like it's an identity-type field, which should take care of the uniqueness requirement.
If you want to use code as your new "id" field, that should be fine as long as you make sure it's a unique value when you add rows. It shouldn't have any effect on joins as long as you update your other tables to use the new code field.
I don't know how easy it is to fiddle with PK's on a table that already has data. Your best bet is to create a new table without the id field and populate it using the data in your current table.
If it's just a matter of not wanting to see / deal with an id field you never use, you can always create a view and exclude that field from being returned.
As per my understanding, You want to remove Id from the table and want to use Product code at that place.
A table relationship is based on the primary and foreign key constraints and it is not necessary that every time you have to Id column as primary key.
If you have product code and which will always be unique and not null
then you can use Code as the primary key for the table rather then
unnecessary Id column.
It will also work if you do not create a column wither primary.
Thanks.
I need to create a database table in which I have the following three fields mainly:
ID(default auto incrementing).
User_id( starting from 1000 ,auto incrementing)
Email
So, I want to set Email to be unique ,not null( Primary key ),but also I want to make sure that User_id remains unique ( that can be solved by setting unique key ) and I also want it to never be set as null. So, how I can achieve this? I am using MySQL BTW.
PS: I am not much good to this schema building for the current time. So, ignore any silly mistakes.
I would go for something like this
CREATE TABLE USERS
(
ID INT PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
User_Id INT AUTO_INCREMENT = 1000,
Email VARCHAR(250) NOT NULL
)
And then
ALTER TABLE USERS ADD UNIQUE (Email)
Or if you intend to search on the Email field
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX inx_users_email ON USERS (Email)
You are better of using the Id field as your primary key. The PK is not meant to change and is used to identify the record. What happens if your user changes email address?
Auto_INCREMENT ensures column has unique values and can never be null.
Is it possible to create auto-increment based on a specific field? For example i have UserId and Status fields, so for each row with same UserId i need to auto-increment its Status, not global.
There is three thing that come to mind when I read your question. One was an auto incrementing field which acts as your ID number. Updating a table with data that has no unique ID number. Searching for fields with the same Userid to Status
Mt First example is of a creating a table and your AUTO_INCREMENTing number ID:
CREATE TABLE tableNameHere
(
UniqueID int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
FirstName varchar(255) NOT NULL,
StatusOrYourColumn int(100) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (UniqueUD)
)
More on auto incrementation.
You may have already built your table and now want to 'add' additional and or modify your fields using ALTER:
ALTER TABLE tableNameHere StatusOrYourColumn INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY
But be careful, you don't want to overwrite your settings that you have already set.
Another Thing that came to my mind when reading was where you said Status and Userid where the same. You can find these using the WHERE clause like so:
SELECT * FROM tableName WHERE tableName.Userid = anotherTableOrTableName.Status
Using these queries you can update, remake, alter and query your database table.