mysql get last auto increment value

Hi I have a field in mySql table called jobnumber which auto increments with each new entry. What I want to do is when a user views my form, get the value of the next ‘jobnumber’ . But I want to do this before any entry is made to the table. IE so when a user looks at a form it will display something like ‘this is job number 6954’ I have tried $rr = mysql_insert_id() but this only work after I have made an entry

Answer

(1) You could do it with looking at the last id in the table and incrementing it manually (but you won’t be sure that the max(id)+1 is really the next id, because the last dataset might be deleted, …):

mysql>  select max(id)+1 from mytable;

(2) Since MySQL does not support sequences like for example Oracle does, you can also implement something like a sequence manually. MySQL proposes the following:

mysql>  CREATE TABLE sequence (id INT NOT NULL);
mysql>  INSERT INTO sequence VALUES (0);

mysql>  UPDATE sequence SET id=LAST_INSERT_ID(id+1);
mysql>  SELECT LAST_INSERT_ID();

Also take a look at this link for more information.