How do I get the last inserted ID of a MySQL table in PHP?

Question

I have a table into which new data is frequently inserted. I need to get the very last ID of the table. How can I do this?

Is it similar to SELECT MAX(id) FROM

Answer 1

I prefer use a pure MySQL syntax to get last auto_increment id of the table I want.

php mysql_insert_id() and mysql last_insert_id() give only last transaction ID.

If you want last auto_incremented ID of any table in your schema (not only last transaction one), you can use this query

SELECT AUTO_INCREMENT FROM information_schema.TABLES
    WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'my_database' 
    AND TABLE_NAME = 'my_table_name';

That's it.