PHP MySQL foreign-key auto insert

Question

So basically what I am trying to do is when a user of my site creates a new account on our register page, I'd like the primary key from the newly created row on the User table (basic info table, email, password, etc.) to be inserted into a new row on the Profile table (more descriptive info, about me, display name, etc.)

I'd like to do this in PHP and any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

if you are using mysqli look at: http://www.php.net/manual/en/mysqli.insert-id.php

Get the id after your first insert and then use this in your next insert.

Answer 2

If doing it "in php" isn't really a requirement, then you can use MySQL's built in Trigger mechanism to do this update.

Triggers cause something to happen AFTER or BEFORE an event(INSERT, UPDATE,DELETE)

So your trigger would be:

CREATE TRIGGER thistrigger AFTER INSERT
ON User FOR EACH ROW
UPDATE PROFILE SET "whatever"

On Triggers: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/create-trigger.html

Answer 3

I think there isn't a really elegant way in MySQL, basically because INSERT doesn't return anything. PostgreSQL does allow for an INSERT... RETURNING clause, but that's an extension.

That said, if you're using the mysql_* functions in PHP, you can use mysql_insert_id , which might suffice for your needs (ie if your primary key is an AUTO INCREMENT integer).

Answer 4

If you are using a mysql database, you could alternatively do another query call from php with the following query:

"SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID();"

More info about it here: http://www.jpgtutorials.com/mysql-last_insert_id-function

It is connection specific. Concurrent inserts from different connections won't affect the current connection.