Re: Auto-increment questions...

On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 12:59:55 -0500, NIPP, SCOTT V (SBCSI) <sn4265@sbc.com> wrote: > OK. The problem is I don't want the next "highest" number. > There are gaps in the UID sequence. I need to find the next UNUSED > number in the sequence which is rarely the "highest" number. As far as I know, you'll have to write a little function to do that for you. I don't know of a built-in database function that does what you require. Assuming your application is PHP, Something such as this might work (pardon the shorthand): function getNextMissing () { $result = "select id from the_table order by id"; while (list ($id) = mysql_fetch....) { if (isset ($lastId) && ($lastId < $id - 1)) { $returnVal = $lastId + 1; } $lastId = $id; } return $returnVal; } You'll need to modify the function to handle there being no gaps in the sequence (i.e. return $id + 1 if you never hit the logic in the if), or for that matter, there being no id's. Otherwise, I think it's a good starting point. Good luck!