CREATE SEQUENCE

MariaDB starting with 10.3

CREATE SEQUENCE was introduced in MariaDB 10.3.

Syntax

CREATE [OR REPLACE] [TEMPORARY] SEQUENCE [IF NOT EXISTS] sequence_name
[ INCREMENT [ BY | = ] increment ]
[ MINVALUE [=] minvalue | NO MINVALUE | NOMINVALUE ]
[ MAXVALUE [=] maxvalue | NO MAXVALUE | NOMAXVALUE ]
[ START [ WITH | = ] start ] 
[ CACHE [=] cache | NOCACHE ] [ CYCLE | NOCYCLE] 
[table_options]

The options for CREATE SEQUENCE can be given in any order, optionally followed by table_options.

table_options can be any of the normal table options in CREATE TABLE but the most usable ones are ENGINE=... and COMMENT=.

NOMAXVALUE and NOMINVALUE are there to allow one to create SEQUENCEs using the Oracle syntax.

Description

CREATE SEQUENCE will create a sequence that generates new values when called with NEXT VALUE FOR sequence_name. It's an alternative to AUTO INCREMENT when one wants to have more control of how the numbers are generated. As the SEQUENCE caches values (up to CACHE) it can in some cases be much faster than AUTO INCREMENT. Another benefit is that one can access the last value generated by all used sequences, which solves one of the limitations with LAST_INSERT_ID().

CREATE SEQUENCE requires the CREATE privilege.

DROP SEQUENCE can be used to drop a sequence, and ALTER SEQUENCE to change it.

Arguments to Create

The following options may be used:

Option	Default value	Description
INCREMENT	1	Increment to use for values. May be negative. Setting an increment of 0 causes the sequence to use the value of the auto_increment_increment system variable at the time of creation, which is always a positive number. (see MDEV-16035).
MINVALUE	1 if INCREMENT > 0 and -9223372036854775807 if INCREMENT < 0	Minimum value for the sequence
MAXVALUE	9223372036854775806 if INCREMENT > 0 and -1 if INCREMENT < 0	Max value for sequence
START	MINVALUE if INCREMENT > 0 and MAX_VALUE if INCREMENT< 0	First value that the sequence will generate
CACHE	1000	Number of values that should be cached. 0 if no CACHE. The underlying table will be updated first time a new sequence number is generated and each time the cache runs out.

If CYCLE is used then the sequence should start again from MINVALUE after it has run out of values. Default value is NOCYCLE.

Constraints on Create Arguments

To be able to create a legal sequence, the following must hold:

MAXVALUE >= start
MAXVALUE > MINVALUE
START >= MINVALUE
MAXVALUE <= 9223372036854775806 (LONGLONG_MAX-1)
MINVALUE >= -9223372036854775807 (LONGLONG_MIN+1)

Note that sequences can't generate the maximum/minimum 64 bit number because of the constraint of MINVALUE and MAXVALUE.

Atomic DDL

MariaDB starting with 10.6.1

MariaDB 10.6.1 supports Atomic DDL and CREATE SEQUENCE is atomic.

Examples

CREATE SEQUENCE s START WITH 100 INCREMENT BY 10;

CREATE SEQUENCE s2 START WITH -100 INCREMENT BY -10;

The following statement fails, as the increment conflicts with the defaults

CREATE SEQUENCE s3 START WITH -100 INCREMENT BY 10;
ERROR 4082 (HY000): Sequence 'test.s3' values are conflicting

The sequence can be created by specifying workable minimum and maximum values:

CREATE SEQUENCE s3 START WITH -100 INCREMENT BY 10 MINVALUE=-100 MAXVALUE=1000;