

In this article, we’ll learn the basics of the auto-increment feature of SQL: what it is and how to use it efficiently. One of the many features offered by SQL is auto-increment. and again check the connection (with the Test Connection button) and click Next. It allows us to automatically generate values in a numeric column upon row insertion. The default option is to create a new database, which is HSQLDB. In this article, I will use Valentina Studio Pro. Thanks to Valentina for providing me with a key for my installation and evaluation. Servers: Provides CS based database management.The startup speed of Valentina Studio is fast, faster than another tool that I am using. You could think of it as an automatically supplied default value – the next number in a number sequence – that’s generated when the row is inserted. It supports four types of servers: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Valentina and ODBC. It’s most commonly used for a primary key column because this column must uniquely identify each row and the auto-increment feature ensures this condition is fulfilled.Īs there are different implementations of the auto-increment feature in various databases – such as MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL – I am going to describe the auto-increment syntax and usage in each of them. Let’s imagine we have created a Person table that contains, among others, a PersonIdentityNumber column: PersonIdentityNumber We’ll also touch upon the sequence objects available in Oracle and PostgreSQL databases. We want this PersonIdentityNumber column to store a unique number per person. Furthermore, all values of the PersonIdentityNumber column must come from a number sequence. INSERT INTO Person (FirstName, LastName, Age) To achieve this, we can set up an auto-increment for this column.įirst, let’s insert a few rows into the Person table, giving values for all the columns except for the PersonIdentityNumber column. When selecting all the rows of the Person table, you’ll see that the PersonIdentityNumber column contains unique numbers from a number sequence that identifies each row.īy default, the auto-increment feature starts numbering the rows from 1 and increments it by 1 on each row insertion thus, the row numbers are 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on.

Note: I’ve assumed that you know all about the CREATE TABLE statement, but if you need to get a better grasp on how to create a table in SQL, see How to Create a Table in SQL. add new table(s), field(s), view(s), trigger(s), index(es), delete tables(s), field(s), view(s), trigger(s), index(es). PersonIdentityNumber INTEGER AUTO_INCREMENT, The auto-increment feature is implemented at the time of table creation. The syntax above shows the CREATE TABLE statement for the Person table. To use the auto-increment feature on the PersonIdentityNumber column, we must define this column as the PRIMARY KEY for the table. Let’s look at another implementation example in MySQL.
#SET PRIMARY KEY VALENTINA STUDIO SERIAL#
To insert the next value of the sequence into the serial column, specify that the serial column should be assigned its default value. Note, that a SERIAL column owns created sequence, so it will be dropped if the column or table is dropped. (In most cases you would also want to attach a UNIQUE or PRIMARY KEY constraint to prevent duplicate values from being inserted by accident, but this is not automatic). A NOT NULL constraint is applied to ensure that a null value cannot be inserted. Thus, we have created a 32-bit integer column and arranged for its default values to be assigned from a sequence generator. In the current implementation, specifying:įldID LONG NOT NULL DEFAULT METHOD ( 'nextval(' 'tblName_fldName_seq' ')' ) )

The data types SERIA元2 and SERIAL64 are not true types, but merely a notation convenience for creating a unique identifier column (similar to AUTOINCREMENT property).
