insert serial id for Postgres?

Anon

I've read that there's no mysql_insertid available for Postgres...

If this is true, what do you do to achieve the same functionality?

Can you use pg_getlastoid for something like this, if not, does it even have a use, other than perhaps seeing if a query did something?

I switched from MySQL as I'm working on an application where data sensitivity is very high, so I'm using (or learning to use) commit/rollback and similar.

-Ben

Anon

PostgreSQL offers the SERIAL data type, which is just shorthand for an INT4 data type whose value comes from a sequence that the system creates automatically. Read up on it at:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/user/datatype.htm#AEN1003

Anon

Yeah, I'm familiar with serial types.

What the problem is, is how do I find out
what serial number was assigned to a
record upon insertion?

So far, the only way I've found is to perform
the insert, and then do a select where
fields = $values_just_inserted, and while
it'd work, it's just not very elegant.

Is there a better way?

thanks,

-Ben

Anon

Just got an e-mail with this text:

Ben,

$result=pg_exec($conn,"INSERT INTO cookie (timestamp) VALUES
($now);");

// find out what sessionid the database assigned
$oid = pg_GetLastOid($result);
if($oid<0) error("Database down.");

// now retrieve the record that the oid points to
$result=pg_exec($conn,"SELECT sessionid FROM cookie WHERE oid =
$oid;");
if(!$result) error("Database down.");
$arr = pg_fetch_array ($result, 0);
$sessionid = $arr[0];

Hope that helps!

Thanks Jason!