On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:00:30 +0000, "Chris Green" <chris@areti.co.uk> said:
If I add an 'auto' column to an existing database to provide a unique key (I don't believe this should really be necessary, see below) will it get automatically populated with a sequence of integers as required?
Yes.
Access can manage without a unique key so why can't any of the mysql front ends do without it?
Last time I looked at MS Access (v. 97?) you had to have a primary key in your tables to do all sorts of things and it used to warn you that you needed one and (I think) created one automatically...
I had a look at my Access database and, although the rows as a whole are unique it turns out that I *don't* have a multi-column primary key to give a unique key. However the database copes quite happily with multiple purchases of stamps with identical descriptions and with pension payments of the same amount every month. It certainly works and I can delete one pension payment without affecting the others for example.
I'm not quite sure what you mean? (Did Access used to have a option to hide columns in tables [for viewing]; maybe its hiding an automatic primary key field?) There is nothing wrong with having a table like this: +--------+--------+ | fname | sname | +--------+--------+ | John | Smith | | John | Smith | +--------+--------+ you just can't tell the difference between to two records. Richard -- Richard Lewis richardlewis@fastmail.co.uk