How to autoincrement an int in MySQL?

[Anon]

Could you please tell me what the SQL keyword is for letting an INT or any other numeric datatype for that matter to autoincrement without actually being input?

For example if i have something along the lines of:

create table newtable(
theid int not null,
blah varchar(10),
primary key(int));

how would specify theid field to autoincrement as well as specifying the initial value if possible?

[Anon]

Len wrote:

Could you please tell me what the SQL keyword is for letting an INT or any other numeric datatype for that matter to autoincrement without actually being input?

For example if i have something along the lines of:

create table newtable(
theid int not null auto_increment,
blah varchar(10),
primary key(int));

how would specify theid field to autoincrement as well as specifying the initial value if possible?

[Anon]

Please Help

[Anon]

Len,

after 'not null', add 'auto_increment' on the line defining your int column.

The syntax is exactly: (from pg 206 of the MySQL documentation)

col_name type [NOT NULL | NULL] [DEFAULT default_value] [AUTO_INCREMENT]
[PRIMARY KEY] [reference_definition]

so, you would use something like:

CREATE TABLE Foo (
theid int(4) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
foo varchar(10),
primary key(theid)
);

I do not believe you can set the initial value. Perhaps you can enter a number of dummy records until you get to the value you want, then delete those records.

Hope this helps.