I currently have a database with over 6 million rows and growing. I currently do SELECT COUNT(id) FROM table; in order to display the number to my users, but the database is getting large and I have no need to store all of those rows except to be able to show the number. Is there a way to select the auto_increment value to display so that I can clear out most of the rows in the database? Using LAST_INSERT_ID()
doesn't seem to work.
Following is the most performant way to find the next AUTO_INCREMENT
value for a table. This is quick even on databases housing millions of tables, because it does not require querying the potentially large information_schema
database.
mysql> SHOW TABLE STATUS LIKE 'table_name';
// Look for the Auto_increment column
However, if you must retrieve this value in a query, then to the information_schema
database you must go.
SELECT `AUTO_INCREMENT`
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = 'DatabaseName'
AND TABLE_NAME = 'TableName';