random character string

[violinrocker]

i have to tables... forums & subscription

 

i would like to insert a random character string into 'forums' to be used as a subscription id.

and then have the same random string to be inserted into 'subscription'

 

 

 

 

[gristoi]

Instead of using a random string why not use an auto incrimenting primary key for subscriptions. Then each one would have to be unique

[violinrocker]

initially i wanted to use auto increment... but then... how would i link the auto-incremented number from the forums to the auto-incremented number in the subscription?

[gristoi]

you would use the subscription Id (primary key) as a foreign key in the forums table. or vice versa. That is how you reference the relationship between the tables

[violinrocker]

I think Im getting what you are trying to say...

but I am going to insert the forum post and the subscription at the same time and i have no idea how i could get the same incremented ID to be used on the other one

[gristoi]

Ok, I am missing something here. What is the subscription part for. If you want to use the forum table with a primary key i would do something along the line of:

$connection = mysql_connect("localhost", "username", "pass");
$sql = "INSERT INTO forums (value1,value2, value3) VALUES ('v1','v2','v3')";
$result = mysql_query($sql,$connection);
$lastId =  mysql_insert_id();


$sql2 = "INSERT INTO subscriptions (forumId,value2, value3) VALUES ('$lastId','v2','v3')";
$result2 = mysql_query($sql2,$connection);

 

Dont forget that if you do use an auto incimenting primary key then you do not need to put it in the insert query.

[violinrocker]

nice, i think this would work... $lastId =  mysql_insert_id(); ... its the first time i've seen it

[gristoi]

Basically, if the last thing inserted into a table by sql had an auto incremented primary key then that function would retrieve the designated key. comes in very handy