9

I have a MySQL table that contains information on invoices of a company. However, this company has two branches, and each of them has a unique invoicing sequence; a "Serie A" and "Serie B", so to speak. However, this is one single company and I do not want to create two invoice tables. Rather, I somehow want to have two different auto-increments for one table. I know this is technically not possible, but I guess this is a problem others have tackled before, so I'd like to know if there is a well-known 'solution' for this issue?

What I am doing right now is not using the primary key as invoice number (which would be ideal), but rather using a secondary column with the invoice id, which is incremented manually (well, using a PHP script, but it's still not automatic), by checking the latest invoice for that particular series.

This is my current setup:

CREATE TABLE `invoices` (
  `id` mediumint unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
  `invoicenumber` mediumint unsigned NOT NULL,
  `branch` enum('A','B') NOT NULL,
  `date` date NOT NULL,
  `client` varchar(100) NOT NULL
) COMMENT='' ENGINE='InnoDB';

To check the lateset invoice, I run:

SELECT MAX(invoicenumber+1) AS new_invoice_number FROM invoices WHERE branch = 'A'

2 Answers 2

12

What you are proposing to do can only be done with MySQL cleanly under three(3) conditions

  • CONDITION #1 : Use the MyISAM storage engine
  • CONDITION #2 : Make auto_increment column part of a compound primary key
  • CONDITION #3 : Each auto_increment for a given type must exist in its own row
  • See the auto_increment documentation for MyISAM

Here is your original table layout

CREATE TABLE `invoices` ( 
  `id` mediumint unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, 
  `invoicenumber` mediumint unsigned NOT NULL, 
  `branch` enum('A','B') NOT NULL, 
  `date` date NOT NULL, 
  `client` varchar(100) NOT NULL 
) COMMENT='' ENGINE='InnoDB'; 

Based on the three conditions I just mentioned, here is the new proposed table layout:

CREATE TABLE `invoices` ( 
  `invoicenumber` mediumint unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, 
  `branch` enum('A','B') NOT NULL, 
  `date` date NOT NULL, 
  `client` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (branch,invoicenumber)
) COMMENT='' ENGINE='MyISAM'; 

Here is an example via sample data and SQL:

drop database if exists user1162541;
create database user1162541;
use user1162541
CREATE TABLE `invoices` ( 
  `invoicenumber` mediumint unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment, 
  `branch` enum('A','B') NOT NULL, 
  `date` date NOT NULL, 
  `client` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (branch,invoicenumber)
) COMMENT='' ENGINE='MyISAM'; 
INSERT INTO invoices (branch,date,client) VALUES
('A',DATE(NOW()),'John'),
('B',DATE(NOW()),'Jack'),
('A',DATE(NOW()),'Jeff'),
('B',DATE(NOW()),'Joel'),
('A',DATE(NOW()),'Jane'),
('B',DATE(NOW()),'Joan'),
('A',DATE(NOW()),'June');
SELECT * FROM invoices ORDER BY branch,invoicenumber;

Here it is executed:

mysql> drop database if exists user1162541;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> create database user1162541;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.02 sec)

mysql> use user1162541
Database changed
mysql> CREATE TABLE `invoices` (
    ->   `invoicenumber` mediumint unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
    ->   `branch` enum('A','B') NOT NULL,
    ->   `date` date NOT NULL,
    ->   `client` varchar(100) NOT NULL,
    ->   PRIMARY KEY (branch,invoicenumber)
    -> ) COMMENT='' ENGINE='MyISAM';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO invoices (branch,date,client) VALUES
    -> ('A',DATE(NOW()),'John'),
    -> ('B',DATE(NOW()),'Jack'),
    -> ('A',DATE(NOW()),'Jeff'),
    -> ('B',DATE(NOW()),'Joel'),
    -> ('A',DATE(NOW()),'Jane'),
    -> ('B',DATE(NOW()),'Joan'),
    -> ('A',DATE(NOW()),'June');
Query OK, 7 rows affected (0.02 sec)
Records: 7  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> SELECT * FROM invoices ORDER BY branch,invoicenumber;
+---------------+--------+------------+--------+
| invoicenumber | branch | date       | client |
+---------------+--------+------------+--------+
|             1 | A      | 2012-04-21 | John   |
|             2 | A      | 2012-04-21 | Jeff   |
|             3 | A      | 2012-04-21 | Jane   |
|             4 | A      | 2012-04-21 | June   |
|             1 | B      | 2012-04-21 | Jack   |
|             2 | B      | 2012-04-21 | Joel   |
|             3 | B      | 2012-04-21 | Joan   |
+---------------+--------+------------+--------+
7 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

Give it a Try !!!

CAVEAT : At present, only the MyISAM Storage Engine supports multiple auto_increment values grouped with other columns. This is not possible with InnoDB based on auto_increment columns being tied directly to the gen_clust_index (aka Clustered Index) !!!

4
  • This is TOTALLY AWESOME! I had no idea this was possible... thanks for enlightening me!!
    – user7970
    Apr 22, 2012 at 17:09
  • You can do a (similar) thing in InnoDB but unfortunately it doesn't work as one hopes. The invicenumbers would be (1,3,5,7) and (2,4,6) for the two branches respectively :( Apr 22, 2012 at 20:07
  • Really too bad it does not work for InnoDB!
    – user7970
    May 31, 2012 at 0:38
  • @user, if InnoDB is needed (in my case i needed for foreign key), you can use a trigger to simulate multi field auto increment. See this post
    – Murta
    Jul 9, 2015 at 22:52
0

Use an after insert trigger on the invoices table to set the value of the invoice number once the row has been inserted successfully.

This means that you do not have to do the computation in your PHP script, but in the database.

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