Home/ Questions/Q 782407
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-14T20:22:56+00:00

I have 2 tables each using other’s primary key as a foreign key. The

  • 0

I have 2 tables each using other’s primary key as a foreign key. The primary keys for both are set to auto_increment.

The problem is, when I try to create and entry into one of the tables, I have no idea what the primary key of the entry is and can’t figure out what to put in the other table as a foreign key. What should I do? Do I drop auto_increment altogether and cook up a unique identifier for each entry so I can use it to address the created entries? I’m using PHP, if that’s relevant. Thanks.

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Every major database going provides a means of finding the ID of the record you just inserted; the idea of auto-incremented IDs wouldn’t be very useful otherwise.

    In MySQL, you can use mysql_insert_id(). See the PHP function of the same name or the MySQL function it wraps around.

    • 0