Auto Increment after delete in MySQL

Question

I have a MySQL table with a primary key field that has AUTO_INCREMENT on. After reading other posts on here I\'ve noticed people with the same problem and with varied answer

Answer 1

I can think of plenty of scenarios where you might need to do this, particularly during a migration or development process. For instance, I just now had to create a new table by cross-joining two existing tables (as part of a complex set-up process), and then I needed to add a primary key after the event. You can drop the existing primary key column, and then do this.

ALTER TABLE my_table ADD `ID` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT FIRST, ADD PRIMARY KEY (`ID`);

For a live system, it is not a good idea, and especially if there are other tables with foreign keys pointing to it.