Generating Identifiers – from AUTO_INCREMENT to Sequence (opens in new tab)

There are a number of options for generating ID values for your tables. In this post, Alexey Mikotkin of Devart explores your choices for generating identifiers with a look at auto_increment, triggers, UUID and sequences. AUTO_INCREMENT Frequently, we happen to need to fill tables with unique identifiers. Naturally, the first example of such identifiers is PRIMARY KEY data. These are usually integer values hidden from the user since their specific values are unimportant.