I am trying to develop a system to assign room numbers to tenants of a hostel upon registration, using the auto increment feature of sql.
However, it automatically increases by one after every entry. Because the hostel accommodates four people in one room, I want to change this to 4, so that after every 4 entries I get only one id/room number.
How do I go about this? I am using php and sql. If the autoincrement feature is not possible can you please suggest another way to achieve this? Thanks.
You would need:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/replication-options-master.html#sysvar_auto_increment_increment
It works like this:
mysql> SET ##auto_increment_increment=4;
So when you insert 4 rows, the auto increment column will be:
4,8,12,16
as best of my knowledge you cannot change the steps of auto-increment field. I suggest add another field and write a trigger to update its value based on auto-increment field (auto-increment/4).
I don't think this is possible with autoincrement..
Maybe you can do something like this:
//Pseudo code
//First you get the count of the highest id, to see how many users are in the last room.
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table WHERE id=(SELECT id FROM table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1)
//If the result of the last query is >= 4 then insert the next customer with id +1
Don't use auto_increment for this - it can't handle a situation where multiple records will share the same number and although you can reset it manually (see below) it's also not designed for a situation where numbers may get reused in a random order.
You could just have a room_number field with one of the mysql integer types (e.g. tinyint, smallint, mediumint…) or you could separate your database into two tables, one for people (each of whom have an id) and a second to map those ids to rooms.
However you do it, you'd then write a select query to check which room numbers are available before you add the person's details to the database.
You may need to read up on relational databases if that doesn't sound very clear.
If you do need to reset the auto_increment (sometimes it's nice to do it if you've filled a database with test data which you're about to wipe, and you want the real "production" data to begin at 1) you can use:
ALTER TABLE [tablename] AUTO_INCREMENT = 1
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/example-auto-increment.html
Related
I'm trying to build a very simple login system for my site (just for practice for a project i'm working on). The way I've decided to implement it is use a table with fields for ID, Name, Password, and username and search for the entered information in the existing table.
For registration, it simply injects the information supplied into the table, and I would like to assign a customer ID number. My idea for assigning an ID number is to simply find the size of the ID column (which will contain the ID's 1,2,3..etc up to the end) and assign the new registration to the length +1. For this purpose i'll need a way to get the size of the column, but I'm just learning php and sql so i'm not sure what the syntax would be.
TLDR; is there a funtion in sql that I can use in php to get the length of a particular column? (i.e the number of entries stored in that column?)
Set the ID column to Primary and Auto increment.
you don't include that in your query it is created on its own.
You'd probably be better off just using an IDENTITY or AUTO_INCREMENT column. The problem with checking for the "size of the column" (by which I assume you mean the count of rows in that column) is that you could end up inserting duplicate IDs, for example:
ID | ...
---------
1
2
4
So if you did a SELECT COUNT(ID)+1 FROM MyTable, it would return 4, and you have an ID collision.
You could do something like SELECT MAX(ID)+1 FROM MyTable, but even then there could be concurrency problems (process A and process B both try to run that query at the same time, before either has a chance to insert the new ID of 5). You're really best off just letting your RDBMS take care of it..
I am using mysql with PHP. I have a students table like this. I am using InnoDB engine.
id int AUTO_INCREMENT
regno int
name varchar
whenever a new student is inserted, I want to assign the next available regno. for example the regno of previous student is 1 then the value should be 2 for the next entry. The auto increment does not work here as it may create gaps. (I am using transactions, so after inserting a row to students table, there are few more queries that may cause rollback, in which case, the auto increment id is incremented although no actual record is inserted). Also, I don't care if there is a gap present between old regnos... e.g regno may have 1,2,3,5,10,11,12 in sequence. now when next student is inserted I would like 12+1=13 for the this student. Also, I want to make sure the regno is not duplicated. (Although regno has a UNIQUE index, but I don't want to throw error. It should get the next number).
I've two solutions in mind.
1: (pseudo-code)
a. Query Database for the newregno = max(regno)+1
b. assign newregno to student while inserting the row.
In this case I am just concerned about that 2 instances of application may query the database at the same time and get the same newregno causing the duplicate.
2: Use triggers... Update the regno after real row insertion. (I've not read much about the triggers, but if any one suggest this is a better approach, I'll go for it)
Any suggestion?
EDIT---
The regno (registeration number) may not be unique itself in future but will be unique along with some other columns e.g. course/session. So please don't offer me an 'auto increment' index type solution.
Have a look at this:
http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2011/11/29/avoiding-auto-increment-holes-on-innodb-with-insert-ignore/
Increment uses different algorithms for calculating the id. You need to set it to avoid holes.
Hi my qouestion is how to get the first number that is not used in specific database row. The number must be betwen 1 and 9999 and must be compared with all numbers in that specific database row, so if data in my database row starts with 5, i wont to be able to get the first number that is not used ...in this case the number 1. then when I create data with number 1.. the next number I need to get is 2 and...I'm using that to create profiles, and that number is the profile number, and ewery new profile must have the first unused number in data base. How to do that. I don't know where to start. So if someone can put me on the right path for solution of this problem? Thanks.
the edit
But, I dont need the auto increment i need to user to be able choosing this number on his own, first, this first number must bee suggested to the user by placeing it in the text form. And if the user select the number that is alredy in the database my program whil let the user know that he is trying to select the number that is allredy exist. So if you understand me ...I know the basics of mysql. The problem comes when the user deletes one profil then the deleted number can't be used eny more. For that i need the functio first free unused number.
New edit
I'l try to clear up some details...Frst this is the program for human resources and the user creates the dosies of workers... when user is creating the new dosie hee needs to select the dosie number for this worker, now I need to sugest to user the first unused number for the new dosie... the dosie number is not the dosie 'id'. Dosie number must be selected manualy by user or he can let the first free number to given to the new dosie... I think this whill clear some things
You are probably talking about auto-Increment primary key of table rows. Just insert the data, without specifying this "number" and the database will automatically set it to the proper (next free) value.
Do not reuse primary keys (eg you have 1,2,3,4,5 but then delete 3 - if you reuse 3 you will not know at any future point that 3 was some other record that was actually deleted).
This, btw, is very basic database knowledge. Read some introduction tutorials on MySQL or any other SQL relational database.
You are trying to use bad the database.
May be you can look this: Finding the next available id in MySQL
First create a table with values 1 to 9999. Then, run this query once:
delete from table where id IN (select id from profiles)
This way, you get IDs that are not in the profiles table. The first one can be shown to the user. On saving the record, make sure to delete that ID from this table.
If I understood you correctly, this is what you are looking for.
If you are limited to using values 1 through 9999 I would probably setup the process as follows:
Add another table with two columns (id_tracker).
Populate id_tracker with id's 1 through 9999 defaulting is_used to 0.
Update id_tracker.is_used to 1 based on the contents of your table.
Add a delete, insert triggers to your table to update the id_tracker as necesssary.
And select empty ID's as follows SELECT id FROM id_tracker WHERE is_used = 0 ORDER BY id LIMIT 1
Here's some SQL to get you started:
create table id_tracker
(id int not null, is_used tinyint default 0, primary key (id));
delimiter |
CREATE TRIGGER your_table_delete_trigger BEFORE DELETE ON your_table
FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
UPDATE id_tracker SET is_used = 0 WHERE id = OLD.your_table_id;
END;
|
CREATE TRIGGER your_table_insert_trigger AFTER INSERT ON your_table
FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
UPDATE id_tracker SET is_used = 1 WHERE id = NEW.your_table_id;
END;
|
delimiter ;
** NOTE: the above is for MySQL
Okay, so let's say I have a mysql database table with two columns, one is for id and the other is for password. If I have three rows of data and the id values go from 1 to 3 and I delete row 3 and then create another row of data, I will see id=4 instead of id=3 on the newly created row. I know this has to do with the auto increment value but I was wondering if I can add some code in a php file that will automatically reset all the id numbers such that you start at id=1 and go up to the last id number in increments of 1 after a row has been deleted?
My goal is to create a form where the user enters a password and the system will match the password with a password value in the database. If there is a match, the row with the matched password will be deleted and the column of id numbers will be reordered such that no id numbers are skipped.
Update: I'm making a rotating banner ad system by setting a random number from 1 to 4 to a variable so that the php file will retrieve a random ad from id=1 to id=4 by using the random number variable. If the random number happens to be 3 and id=3 does not exist, there will be a gap in the row of banner ads. If there is a way to work around big gaps in this situation, please tell me. thanks in advance
Just execute the following SQL query:
ALTER TABLE `tbl_name` AUTO_INCREMENT = 1;
…but it sounds like a terrible idea, so don't do it. Why is the value of your primary key so important? Uniqueness is far more important, and reseting it undermines that.
You can only use
ALTER TABLE 'tbl' AUTO_INCREMENT=#
to reset to a number above the highest value number. If you have 1, 2, 3, and you delete 2, you cannot use this to fill 2. If you delete 3, you could use this to re-use 3 (assuming you haven't put anything higher). That is the best you can do.
ALTER TABLE 'table' AUTO_INCREMENT = 1;
However running this code is not the best idea. There is something wrong with your application if you depend on the column having no gaps. Are you trying to count the number of users? if so use COUNT(id)? Are you trying to deal with other tables? If so use a foreign key.
If you are dead set on doing this the Wrong Way you could try to look for the lowest free number and do the incrementing on your own. Keep in mind the race conditions involves however.
Also, keep in mind that if you change the actual numbers in the database you will need to change all references to it in other tables and in your code.
Well, you can actually just specify the id number you'd like a record to have as part of your insert statement, for example:
INSERT INTO person VALUES(1,'John','Smith','jsmith#devnull.fake','+19995559999');
And if there's not a primary key collision (no record in the database with id=1), then MySQL will happily execute it.
The ALTER TABLE 'tbl' AUTO_INCREMENT=# thing also works, and means you don't have to keep track of the counter.
While you're thinking about this, though, you might want to read some of the discussion on natural vs surrogate keys. The idea of having your id # be specifically important is a bit unusual and might be a sign of a troubled design.
You could do that by:
Inventing a mechanism that provides the next available id when you want to insert (e.g. a transaction involving reading and incrementing an integer column somewhere -- pay special attention to the transaction isolation level!)
Using UPDATE to decrement all ids greater than the one you just deleted (again, with a transaction -- don't forget that foreign keys must be ON UPDATE CASCADE!)
But it begs the question: why do you want this? is it going to be worth the trouble?
It's almost certain that you can achieve whatever your goal is without such witchery.
Update (to address comment):
To select a random number of rows, you can do e.g. in MySQL
SELECT id FROM banners ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 5
to select 5 random, guaranteed existing banner ids.
A word of caution: there are quite a few people who view ORDER BY RAND() as a bad performance hog. However, it is IMHO not quite right to put every case in the same basket. If the number of rows in the table is manageable (I would consider anything below 10K to be not that many) then ORDER BY RAND() provides a very nice and succint solution. Also, the documentation itself suggests this approach:
However, you can retrieve rows in
random order like this:
mysql> SELECT * FROM tbl_name ORDER BY RAND();
ORDER BY RAND() combined with
LIMIT is useful for selecting a random
sample from a set of rows:
mysql> SELECT * FROM table1, table2 WHERE a=b AND c ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 1000;
RAND() is not meant to be
a perfect random generator. It is a
fast way to generate random numbers on
demand that is portable between
platforms for the same MySQL version.
I am building a employees page.
Some of the information goes into an 'employees' table but some of it goes into a 'availability' table that is referenced to the 'employee' table:
availability:
id / employeeid (unique id from employees table) / monday available / and on and on /
So I don't have that unique ID from the employees table until I create them.
Is it fine to do a query where I set the employee info and then a query to get the last created row in the employee table and then use the unique id from that to set the availability...
Or is that messy and should I have a create employee page and THEN a set availability page?
So basically I want to know if it is cleaner and 'better' coding to separate the two functions?
Adding to #Quassnoi's answer:
You would add the employee record, then use the MySQL LAST_INSERT_ID() function to find the autoincremented unique id for the employee record you added. You can then feed that value back into the availability INSERT statement.
More details are on the MySQL manual page at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/example-auto-increment.html
It's important that you not use a SELECT statement (e.g. SELECT MAX(employee.id)) since there might be other uses adding records as well. LAST_INSERT_ID() is specific to your connection
Of course create employee first, availability then.
If your tables are InnoDB, you can do it in a transaction so that you can rollback the whole update if something goes wrong.
Is it fine to do a query where I set
the employee info and then a query to
get the last created row in the
employee table and then use the unique
id from that to set the
availability...
Yes, that sounds OK. If you use an autoincrement column for employeeid, you can then use mysql_insert_id() or equivalent to retrieve that last inserted id safely. Don't do SELECT MAX(employeeid) FROM ...., because you might get problems when loads of people are using it concurrently.
You can easily get the last insered record via
mysql_insert_id()
After that, you can insert an availability record for the desired employee.
Note: I would choose a framework that takes care of these issues, like Symfony or Cake.
Using the "last created row" may not always work the way that you're expecting and may complicate things in the future if there's growth or if another programmer assumes the project. If I understand what you're looking for, you should instead have 3 tables. One table for employees, one table for availability, and a third table should be used to store unique records for the association. In the association table each row will have columns for : a unique ID, the employee id, the availability id.