Primary Key Value Generated Automatically

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Oct 09, 2012  Code for automatically generating Primary Key value for a Table: Create Table Maintenance Generator for the table. Create Table – Transaction SE11. Now GOTO Utilities Table Maintenance generator. Now create Table Maintenance Generator and Save it. Now for working on the Table Actions we need to trigger a Table Event. An identity column provides a way for DB2® to automatically generate a unique numeric value for each row that is added to the table. When creating a table in which you must uniquely identify each row that will be added to the table, you can add an identity column to the table. Oct 28, 2018 In this example, we've also set an initial value for the sequence, which means the primary key generation will start at 4. SEQUENCE is the generation type recommended by the Hibernate documentation. The generated values are unique per sequence. If you don't specify a sequence name, Hibernate will re-use the same hibernatesequence for different.

The AUTO_INCREMENT attribute can be used to generate a unique identity for new rows:

Which returns:

No value was specified for the AUTO_INCREMENT column, so MySQL assigned sequence numbers automatically. You can also explicitly assign 0 to the column to generate sequence numbers, unless the NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO SQL mode is enabled. For example:

If the column is declared NOT NULL, it is also possible to assign NULL to the column to generate sequence numbers. For example:

When you insert any other value into an AUTO_INCREMENT column, the column is set to that value and the sequence is reset so that the next automatically generated value follows sequentially from the largest column value. For example:

Updating an existing AUTO_INCREMENT column value in an InnoDB table does not reset the AUTO_INCREMENT sequence as it does for MyISAM and NDB tables.

You can retrieve the most recent automatically generated AUTO_INCREMENT value with the LAST_INSERT_ID() SQL function or the mysql_insert_id() C API function. These functions are connection-specific, so their return values are not affected by another connection which is also performing inserts.

Use the smallest integer data type for the AUTO_INCREMENT column that is large enough to hold the maximum sequence value you will need. When the column reaches the upper limit of the data type, the next attempt to generate a sequence number fails. Use the UNSIGNED attribute if possible to allow a greater range. For example, if you use TINYINT, the maximum permissible sequence number is 127. For TINYINT UNSIGNED, the maximum is 255. See Section 11.1.2, “Integer Types (Exact Value) - INTEGER, INT, SMALLINT, TINYINT, MEDIUMINT, BIGINT” for the ranges of all the integer types.

Primary Key Value Generated Automatically Worksheet

For a multiple-row insert, LAST_INSERT_ID() and mysql_insert_id() actually return the AUTO_INCREMENT key from the first of the inserted rows. This enables multiple-row inserts to be reproduced correctly on other servers in a replication setup.

Primary Key Value Generated Automatically List

To start with an AUTO_INCREMENT value other than 1, set that value with CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE, like this:

For information about AUTO_INCREMENT usage specific to InnoDB, see Section 14.6.1.6, “AUTO_INCREMENT Handling in InnoDB”.

  • For MyISAM tables, you can specify AUTO_INCREMENT on a secondary column in a multiple-column index. In this case, the generated value for the AUTO_INCREMENT column is calculated as MAX(auto_increment_column) + 1 WHERE prefix=given-prefix. This is useful when you want to put data into ordered groups.

    Which returns:

    In this case (when the AUTO_INCREMENT column is part of a multiple-column index), AUTO_INCREMENT values are reused if you delete the row with the biggest AUTO_INCREMENT value in any group. This happens even for MyISAM tables, for which AUTO_INCREMENT values normally are not reused.

  • If the AUTO_INCREMENT column is part of multiple indexes, MySQL generates sequence values using the index that begins with the AUTO_INCREMENT column, if there is one. For example, if the animals table contained indexes PRIMARY KEY (grp, id) and INDEX (id), MySQL would ignore the PRIMARY KEY for generating sequence values. As a result, the table would contain a single sequence, not a sequence per grp value.

More information about AUTO_INCREMENT is available here:

  • How to assign the AUTO_INCREMENT attribute to a column: Section 13.1.18, “CREATE TABLE Statement”, and Section 13.1.8, “ALTER TABLE Statement”.

  • How AUTO_INCREMENT behaves depending on the NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO SQL mode: Section 5.1.10, “Server SQL Modes”.

  • How to use the LAST_INSERT_ID() function to find the row that contains the most recent AUTO_INCREMENT value: Section 12.15, “Information Functions”.

  • Setting the AUTO_INCREMENT value to be used: Section 5.1.7, “Server System Variables”.

  • AUTO_INCREMENT and replication: Section 16.4.1.1, “Replication and AUTO_INCREMENT”.

  • Server-system variables related to AUTO_INCREMENT (auto_increment_increment and auto_increment_offset) that can be used for replication: Section 5.1.7, “Server System Variables”.

Learning has never been so easy!

The Identity column is new to Oracle 12c, and this article explains what it is for and how to use it.

Have you ever needed to generate a unique value for a column, and have it automatically set when you insert a new value?

In other databases, this is simple, but in Oracle, it was a little complicated - until Oracle 12c.

The Problem

Let's say you wanted to have a unique value generated for a column, such as a primary key value. You wanted this value to be automatically generated when you insert a new record, without having to specify it.

If you've used other databases, such as MySQL, this was easy to do. You would just define a column as AUTO_INCREMENT, and whenever you insert a new record, you would leave this column out of the INSERT statement, and the new value would be automatically set.

However, the only way to do this in Oracle is to use a combination of a sequence and a trigger on the table. (LINK)

Until Oracle 12c.

What is an Identity Column in Oracle?

Oracle 12c has introduced the concept of an IDENTITY column. You can set a column as an identity, which works in a similar way to the auto increment column.

Then, whenever you insert a new record into the table, you don't need to specify a value for this column, as it will be generated automatically.

It's a great way to ensure a value is always unique in a column, and to make sure that whoever inserts a record doesn't need to manually call a sequence.

3 Steps total

Step 1: Create table with an Identity column

To set up an identity column, you need to do it as part of the CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statements.

For example: Pre shared key generator ipsec.

CREATE TABLE idtest (
new_id NUMBER GENERATED AS IDENTITY,
first_name VARCHAR2(100)
last_name VARCHAR2(100)
);

This means that the new_id column is now an identity column.

If you want to set an existing column as an identity column, I would advise against it. It could cause issues with your data. The better way to do this would be to create a new table and use some renaming of tables to get this done.

Just like with a sequence, you can specify different values and parameters for an identity column.

Let's say you wanted to start your values at 1000, and increment by 5 every time. You can do this in your CREATE TABLE statement:

CREATE TABLE idtest2 (
new_id NUMBER GENERATED AS IDENTITY (START WITH 1000 INCREMENT BY 5)
testval VARCHAR2(50)
);

Whenever you insert new values, they will start at 1000 and go up by 5 (1000, 1005, 1010, 1015).

Step 2: Insert new records into the table

So, now you have set up the identity column, it's time to use it.

To use an identity column, you just run an INSERT statement that does not use this column.

INSERT INTO idtest (first_name, last_name) VALUES (‘Peter’, ‘Parker’);
INSERT INTO idtest (first_name, last_name) VALUES (‘Clark’, ‘Kent’);
INSERT INTO idtest (first_name, last_name) VALUES (‘Bruce’, ‘Wayne’);

Each of these statements will insert a new value in the idtest table. Notice how I did not specify a value for the new_id column.

Step 3: Query table to see that values have been set

Now, to check that the values have been inserted, we can query the table.
SELECT new_id, first_name, last_name
FROM idtest;

You can see that the records exist and that the new_id has been set.

Published: Aug 16, 2016 · Last Updated: Nov 04, 2016

References

  • The Full List - Oracle 12c New Features for Developers

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