Selecting last inserted row

I have an application that inserts a row of data into a table every 5 minutes.

From a different machine, I like to be able to select the last inserted row.

Any Suggestions? (auto_increment doesn't work for this applications.)

Thanks.

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=Don=

This might not be good way to select the latest row inserted, but I've used

"SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1"

Anything wrong with doing it this way?

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auto_increment doesn't work for this
- Modify table, add a field for storing of DATETIME or check the current structure of table.
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"SELECT * FROM table ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1"
- It can fail (at least in Oracle) if there was deletion of some rows from [table] before.

Is it right in MySQL?????

Yes it'll work as MySQL increments the largest id to generate the next id, meaning that deleted items will not be replaced.

However, I agree that it's not a good idea. That functionality might change in the future. Better to add a datetime field and use it.

Thanks Guys! That's just what I needed. There is a time stamp in the table, but it's a string version. ("2000-08-28 14:55:00") so I had in place a real ugly solution. But this is what I really needed.

Thanks again.

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=Don=

[This message has been edited by Cougar (edited September 06, 2000).]

If you want the non-string version of any mysql date/time data type, just add +0 in your select:

select datetimefield+0

But that shouldn't matter for a sort, or are you using a char field to store the date rather than one of the built in types?

Wow, didn't know that either. The application that inserts the data is a prefab app, came with the device. But they did use a 'datetime' type, so your +0 suggestion also works.

Thanks again.

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=Don=