SQL Auto Increment.

Auto Increment of a column value in the table

  • Sometimes we want to generate a unique key for a column in a table.
  • Almost all RDBMS provides the ability to define a column of integer type that automatically creates new value for new rows in the table.
  • AUTO_INCREMENT column must be indexed. This means that the column must be included as part of a PRIMARY KEY, UNIQUE index or CONSTRAINT definition
  • Auto increment specified slightly differently as regards the individual RDBMS.

MySQL

In MySQL RDBMS you can enter AUTO_INCREMENT at the end of selected column.

MySQL Example:
CREATE TABLE customer (
  CUSTOMER_ID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
  FIRST_NAME VARCHAR(30) NULL,
  LAST_NAME VARCHAR(40) NULL,
  EMAIL VARCHAR(30) NULL
 )
or :
CREATE TABLE customer (
  CUSTOMER_ID INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  FIRST_NAME VARCHAR(30) NULL,
  LAST_NAME VARCHAR(40) NULL,
  EMAIL VARCHAR(30) NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (CUSTOMER_ID)
 )
or :
CREATE TABLE customer (
  CUSTOMER_ID INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  FIRST_NAME VARCHAR(30) NULL,
  LAST_NAME VARCHAR(40) NULL,
  EMAIL VARCHAR(30) NULL,
  CONSTRAINT pk_CUSTOMER PRIMARY KEY (CUSTOMER_ID)
 )

The starting value for AUTO_INCREMENT is default 1, and it will increment by 1 for each new row.

SQL Server

In SQL Server RDMS you must enter IDENTITY keyword as part of the specification of the selected column.

Example:
CREATE TABLE customer (
  CUSTOMER_ID INT IDENTITY(1,1) PRIMARY KEY,
  FIRST_NAME VARCHAR(30) NULL,
  LAST_NAME VARCHAR(40) NULL,
  EMAIL VARCHAR(30) NULL
 )

In this example the starting value for IDENTITY is 1, and it will increment by 1 for each new row. A specification of IDENTITY(10,10) gives a start value of 10, and will increment by 10 for each new row.

PostgreSQL

In PostgreSQL RDMS you can enter SERIAL as type of the selected column.

Example:
CREATE TABLE customer (
  CUSTOMER_ID SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
  FIRST_NAME VARCHAR(30) NULL,
  LAST_NAME VARCHAR(40) NULL,
  EMAIL VARCHAR(30) NULL
 )

The SERIAL column data will then increase by 1 for each row you insert into the table.

Oracle

In Oracle RDMS you must do it in a two step order.

  1. You must create an autonumber field by creating a SEQUENCE. A SEQUENCE is an object in Oracle that is used to generate a number sequence.
    ORACLE SEQUENCE example:
    CREATE SEQUENCE customer_seq
      MINVALUE 1
      START WITH 1
      INCREMENT BY 2
      CACHE 20;

    This will creates a sequence object called customer_seq, that starts with 1 and will increment by 1. It will also cache up to 20 values for performance.

  2. The next step is when you insert row into the table and use customer_seq.nextval to get new values from the sequence.
    ORACLE insert example:
    INSERT INTO customer (CUSTOMER_ID,FIRST_NAME,LAST_NAME)
    VALUES (customer_seq.nextval,'Ricard','Moon')
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