M. Sokolewicz wrote:
Stut wrote:
Jason Pruim wrote:
Hi Everyone,
Hi Dr Jason.
I think after I get this question answered, I can stop asking for
awhile since my project will be done, at least until the users say
"What happened to XYZ????" then I'll ask again :)
I asked on a MySQL list about "Resetting a auto increment filed" so
that there arn't any gaps in the record number.
So to say it another way, I have a table that has 900 records in it,
I've added 3 records, but then deleted 2 of those which puts the
actual record count at 901 but my auto increment field starts at 904
on the next insert.
Is there away with PHP that I can pragmatically change that value to
the total records in the database more so then a representation of
the actual record number?
What are you actually trying to achieve? Why do you need all records
to have a sequential number? Ignore how you're going to do it, just
tell us why you think you need this, because I've never come across a
reason to need this.
-Stut
I've seen many people who wished to "fix" sequences like this before,
usually because they believe there is something "wrong" with there being
gaps in there. However, from a database-point-of-view an auto_increment
value represents a unique row which _stays_ unique. As such because it
doesn't re-assign values used before you keep database integrity intact
because old possible links between rows/tables won't be reused and thus
won't form unintended links (ie. say you delete row [id=2] from table a,
which was linked via [id=2] to a row in table b. If it was reused, a
"fresh" row would suddenly inherit its predecessors links (which it
should not!).
The auto_increment value represents just that, an internal unique id for
a row in a specific table. It doesn't represent the location of a row in
respect to other rows (ie the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of the table), simply
because that's now what it's intended for. If that is what you wish,
you'll need to find a different way of achieving it.
Again this is focusing on what autoincrement fields are used for. I want
Jason to tell us what he needs a sequential record number with no gaps
for, otherwise you lot are going to continue telling him the same thing
over and over again which is unlikely to help anyone.
-Stut
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