The AUTO_INCREMENT attribute can be used to generate a unique identity for new rows:
mysql> mysql> CREATE TABLE employee ( -> id MEDIUMINT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, -> name CHAR(30) NOT NULL, -> PRIMARY KEY (id) -> ); Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
mysql> mysql> desc employee; +-------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +-------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ | id | mediumint(9) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment | | name | char(30) | NO | | | | +-------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ 2 rows in set (0.02 sec)
mysql> mysql> SELECT * FROM employee; +----+------+ | id | name | +----+------+ | 1 | A | | 2 | B | | 3 | C | | 4 | D | | 5 | E | | 6 | F | +----+------+ 6 rows in set (0.00 sec)