Question

Can I get from PHP a value back like the new id from the row I’ve just added to the database or should I make a SELECT to retrieve it?

<?php

$sql = "INSERT INTO my_table (column_1, column_2) VALUES ('hello', 'ciao')";
$res = mysql_query ($sql) or die (mysql_error ());

$sql = "SELECT column_id FROM my_table WHERE column_1 = 'hello'";
$res = mysql_query ($sql) or die (mysql_error ());

$row = mysql_fetch_assoc ($res);
$id = $row["column_id"];
print "my id is = $id";

?>

Answer 1

Use this: http://php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-insert-id.php
Selecting can be dangerous because an auto-increment often means that records may not otherwise be unique, and therefore not uniquely selectable without the id.