How to create id with AUTO_INCREMENT on Oracle?

Question

It appears that there is no concept of AUTO_INCREMENT in Oracle, up until and including version 11g.

How can I create a column that behaves like auto increment in Or

Answer 1

SYS_GUID returns a GUID-- a globally unique ID. A SYS_GUID is a RAW(16). It does not generate an incrementing numeric value.

If you want to create an incrementing numeric key, you'll want to create a sequence.

CREATE SEQUENCE name_of_sequence
  START WITH 1
  INCREMENT BY 1
  CACHE 100;

You would then either use that sequence in your INSERT statement

INSERT INTO name_of_table( primary_key_column, <> )
  VALUES( name_of_sequence.nextval, <> );

Or you can define a trigger that automatically populates the primary key value using the sequence

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER trigger_name
  BEFORE INSERT ON table_name
  FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
  SELECT name_of_sequence.nextval
    INTO :new.primary_key_column
    FROM dual;
END;

If you are using Oracle 11.1 or later, you can simplify the trigger a bit

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER trigger_name
  BEFORE INSERT ON table_name
  FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
  :new.primary_key_column := name_of_sequence.nextval;
END;

If you really want to use SYS_GUID

CREATE TABLE table_name (
  primary_key_column raw(16) default sys_guid() primary key,
  <>
)