Question

Is there any way I could make my model ID (primary key) generated into random unique 8 digits containing only numbers instead of the default auto increment?
A client requested this specific 8-digits-number-only feature, so I can’t argue much about the reasons.

I want to use the PHP uniqid but it’s 13 digits and contains alphabets as well.

Any idea?

Thanks.

Update

I forgot to tell that I need the ID randomly generated each new record being saved.

Just want to ask the mechanism on generating the ID and then saving the ID (also the attributes). Do I have to check the database first for the randomly generated ID whether another same key already exists and then save the attributes or what?

Answer 1

Yes you can. I assume you are on MySQL, when talking about AI. Just do not set it as auto increment and insert the value as for the other columns. You can create a function or method, which will take up to 8 numbers randomly or in specific order (algorithm).

INSERT INTO model (id, name, value, etc) VALUES (87654321, 'My selected name', 'some price or text', 'etc').

Consider that INT(11) value may accept from -2147483648 to 2147483647. Which will fit you for numbers with 8 digits. If at later time the client request bigger numbers you may need to switch to BIGINT.

I use to set the Primary Keys as unsigned, which allows you to fit numbers between 0 and 4294967295.

For php function – generator of 8 digits:

<?php

mt_srand();
$id = mt_rand(10000000, 99999999);

?>

You can read more about mt_srand() and mt_rand() on php documentation. It is said that they are better than the srand() and rand().