id numbers auto increment

[g7pwx]

Ok. i have a database where we add data to it from a web page but the id_num is described below

Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra
id_num | int(11) | | PRI | NULL | auto_increment

This id_num incremented ok but we had say; 1000 entrys but we deleted say 500 entries.

Now my problem when we submit data by the web site it puts an id_num of 1001 not 501 unless you put this in manually. so we have 500 blank id_num's it there any way around this in php code or in the database setup how we can tell it to fill in the blank feilds.

Thank You for any help.

[notionlogic]

Don't know if this helps at all but you can reset an auto_increment counter using:

ALTER TABLE tbl_name AUTO_INCREMENT = 1;

[g7pwx]

Sorry no that dident work its still adding above 1001 instead of adding to 501

Thank you

[notionlogic]

That will be because the existing data was still there - the best way to "reset" things is to export the data, delete the table and rebuild it...

The whole point here is that the auto_increment is supposed to be unique and it won't be if you allow reuse of the id's