We add an auto_increment BIGINT to every table we create. This gives us the
essence and utility of ROWID (BTW we always name the first column in a new
table 'row_id').
Just my 2 cents
Pat...
patrick@stripped
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeremy Zawodny" <Jeremy@stripped>
To: "Mike Brando" <mbrando@stripped>
Cc: <mysql@stripped>
Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 8:49 PM
Subject: Re: ROWID
> On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 01:02:31PM -0800, Mike Brando wrote:
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > On Thu, Nov 06, 2003 at 09:59:41AM -0800, Wan, Wenhua wrote:
> > > > Hi there,
> > > >
> > > > Both Oracle and Informix use ROWID to uniquely represent the
location of
> > > > each row of data in a table. ROWID is basically a hidden column or
> > > > pseudocolumn for each table, and it is the fastest way to retrive a
row
> > > from
> > > > a table. Does MySql have similar field? If is, what's the name and
how
> > > to
> > > > access it?
> > > >
> > > > Thank you very much in advance for your advice.
> > >
> > > http://www.mysql.com/doc/search.php?q=rowid
> > >
> >
> >
> > Ok, so that search produces this:
> >
> > " If the PRIMARY or UNIQUE key consists of only one column and this is
of type
> > integer, you can also refer to it as _rowid (new in Version 3.23.11)."
>
> Yes.
>
> > But that's not what a "ROWID" is compared to what I think the
> > original poster was looking for.
>
> One hopes he figured that out after reading the description.
>
> > In Oracle for example, a ROWID is the unique address of a row in the
> > database. Every row, unique key or not has a unique address. Is
> > there such a thing in MySQL?
>
> No. If there was it'd be documented. But at lesat with MyISAM
> tables, MySQL cannot guarantee the "address" (or row number) of a
> row. An ALTER/REPAIR/OPTIMIZE may reorder the rows.
>
> > ROWIDs are extremely useful for guaranteeing that you are
> > manipulating the exact row that you think you are.
>
> So I've been told.
>
> Jeremy
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> <Jeremy@stripped> | http://jeremy.zawodny.com/
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