MySQL, two columns both set to the primary key.

Question

For the sake of simplicity lets say I have a table with 3 columns; id, parent_id and name. In this table id is my auto-incrementing primary key. I want to group multiple names together in this table, to do this all names in a group will share the same parent_id. If I am inserting the the first name in the group I want the id=parent_id, if i am inserting another name I want to specify a specific parent_id to place that name into a specific group. It would be nice if I could define a default for that column to be the same as the id, if I specify a value for parent_id in the insert query then I would like it to use that value. I know you can set a default to be a specific static value, but can you specify the default to be the same as that row's auto-incrementing primary key? Perhaps this is a job for a trigger or stored procedure?

(I know I could obtain the primary key generated by the last insert and then update the table, but that's 2 quires I'd rather not burn.)

Thanks!

Answer 1

This is a job of a trigger!

CREATE TRIGGER NAME1 AFTER INSERT ON TABLE1 
BEGIN

UPDATE TABLE1 SET parent_id = id WHERE (parent_id IS NULL OR parent_id = '');

END;

INSERT INTO TABLE1 (id,parent_id) VALUES (null,null); -- parent_id will be equal to id
INSERT INTO TABLE1 (id,parent_id) VALUES (null,'1'); -- parent_id will be 1
INSERT INTO TABLE1 (id,parent_id) VALUES (null,'2'); -- parent_id will be 2