There are a number of options for generating ID values for your tables. In this post, Alexey Mikotkin of Devart explores your choices for generating identifiers with a look at auto_increment, triggers, UUID and sequences.
AUTO_INCREMENT
Frequently, we happen to need to fill tables with unique identifiers. Naturally, the first example of such identifiers is PRIMARY KEY data. These are usually integer values hidden from the user since their specific values are unimportant.
When adding a row to a table, you need to take this new key value from somewhere. You can set up your own process of generating a new identifier, but MySQL comes to the aid of the user with the AUTO_INCREMENT column setting. It is set as a column attribute and allows you to generate unique integer identifiers. As an example, consider the …
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