Picking Unique ID

[PupChow]

Sorry if this is a very elementary question, but I just cannot seems to find the answer in the books I have (probably because it is very simple?) or online.

What is the best way to create a unique ID? This ID will be used to link up a couple tables, and I was adviced to not use Auto-number field. Is there a easy way to generate a unique number in PHP while it is inserting the data into the database?

[hitman6003]

Why were you told not to use auto-increment?

[PupChow]

Something about it is hard to manage. I didn't really quite follow thought...

What I am trying to do in simple term is 2 tables:

Table1: ID, Name, Address, Phone
Table2: ID, Salary

And I am in the process of building PHP pages that will allow users to enter their own information and be put into the database.

[hitman6003]

There's nothing about it that's hard to manage...every time a record is inserted into the db, it assigns it the next incremental id.

Potential table structure:
[code]
person
    ID
    Name
    Address
    Phone

workinfo
    ID
    personID
    Salary[/code]

sample query:

[!--sql--][div class=\'sqltop\']SQL[/div][div class=\'sqlmain\'][!--sql1--][span style=\'color:blue;font-weight:bold\']SELECT[/span] Name, Address, Phone, Salary
[color=green]FROM[/color] [color=orange]person[/color] [color=green]LEFT[/color] [color=green]JOIN[/color] workinfo ON person.ID [color=orange]=[/color] workinfo.personID
[color=green]WHERE[/color] Name [color=orange]=[/color] [color=red]'Some Name'[/color] [!--sql2--][/div][!--sql3--]

[PupChow]

Gotcha. Is Auto-Increment Number a pretty popular thing (or standard) to use when it comes to unique ID?

On a related note, do I also just join the table first if I want to delete a record?

[hitman6003]

[!--quoteo(post=355172:date=Mar 14 2006, 08:17 PM:name=PupChow)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(PupChow @ Mar 14 2006, 08:17 PM) [snapback]355172[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]
do I also just join the table first if I want to delete a record?
[/quote]

No, you'll have to delete each of them.

[PupChow]

[!--quoteo(post=355175:date=Mar 14 2006, 08:22 PM:name=hitman6003)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(hitman6003 @ Mar 14 2006, 08:22 PM) [snapback]355175[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]
No, you'll have to delete each of them.
[/quote]

Would I need to do two different SQL queries for insert as well? Sorry, I am pretty new to this.

[keeB]

I am quite sure you can manage with 1 SQL statement, but to be on the safe side you should definately use 2 unless you test it thoroughly.. although I really don't see why it wouldnt work with one.