getting ID of last inserted row

[pkghost]

i want to grab the id of a data set right after inserting it. i thought about simply doing a quick 'SELECT id FROM table ORDER BY id DESC' and taking the first row as the id, but this banks on the fact that there are not multiple people inserting simultaneously who might end up getting the wrong ID because someone else inserted ANOTHER item before the SELECT statement runs.

any ideas? thanks

[laserlight]

It depends on your RDMS and which database interface you use.

[pkghost]

not sure what the relational database management thing is.. how might i find out? im running mysql 4.1 (methinks)

[laserlight]

Then your RDMS is mysql 4.1

Chances are you're using the mysqli extension for the programming interface, so [man]mysqli_insert_id/man is what you're looking for.

[pkghost]

thanks!