How to get ID of the last updated row in MySQL?

Question

How do I get the ID of the last updated row in MySQL using PHP?

Answer 1

This is the same method as Salman A's answer, but here's the code you actually need to do it.

First, edit your table so that it will automatically keep track of whenever a row is modified. Remove the last line if you only want to know when a row was initially inserted.

ALTER TABLE mytable
ADD lastmodified TIMESTAMP 
    DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP 
    ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;

Then, to find out the last updated row, you can use this code.

SELECT id FROM mytable ORDER BY lastmodified DESC LIMIT 1;

This code is all lifted from MySQL vs PostgreSQL: Adding a 'Last Modified Time' Column to a Table and MySQL Manual: Sorting Rows. I just assembled it.