Question

I will first show you the code, it’s easier to discuss this way.

 $message = $_GET['r'];
    $message = str_replace("%20", " ", $message);
    echo $message;

    mysql_query("INSERT INTO `uniform` (`note`,`cadetID) 
    VALUES ('$message','$cadet')");

    $query = mysql_query("SELECT `uniformID` FROM `cadets` WHERE id = '$cadet'");
    while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)) {
      $uniformA = $row['uniformID'];
    }

    if($uniformA == "0"){
      mysql_query("UPDATE `cadets` SET `uniformID` = '" .  ."'
      WHERE id = '$cadet'");
    }

Don’t worry about sanatisation for now.

I got to the line:

mysql_query("UPDATE `cadets` SET `uniformID` = '" .  ."' WHERE id = '$cadet'");

and realised I need the ID of the sql insert

mysql_query("INSERT INTO `uniform` (`note`,`cadetID) VALUES ('$message','$cadet')");

Is there an efficient way of getting the newly incremented ID from the database? Table structure as follows:

cadet(id[primary key, auto increment],...,uniformID)

uniform(id[prim key, auto inc], note, cadetID)

Data:

Cadet: 1,...,[1,2,3] <- all in the [] are in cadetID, array delimited by ‘,’

Uniform: 1, need a new blahh blahh, 1

Uniform: 2, new shoes needed, 1

And so forth.

So, in E-R speak, one cadet can have many uniform ID’s.

TL;DR I need to store the new ID in the database (auto incremented by SQL db) on a insert into

Answer 1

I would suggest you change that to PDO and access it simply as this:

$query = "INSERT INTO `uniform` ( `note`, `cadetID` ) VALUES ( ?, ? )";
$params = array( $message, $cadet );

$stmt = $db->prepare( $query );
$stmt->execute( $params );

$last_id = $db->lastInsertId();

Here is nice tutorial and how to do that: http://wiki.hashphp.org/PDO_Tutorial_for_MySQL_Developers

But in your case, you can use a query like this ( although it is not as safe ):

SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID();