How do I get the last inserted ID of a MySQL table in PHP?

Question

I have a table into which new data is frequently inserted. I need to get the very last ID of the table. How can I do this?

Is it similar to SELECT MAX(id) FROM

Answer 1

NOTE: if you do multiple inserts with one statement mysqli::insert_id will not be correct.

The table:

create table xyz (id int(11) auto_increment, name varchar(255), primary key(id));

Now if you do:

insert into xyz (name) values('one'),('two'),('three');

The mysqli::insert_id will be 1 not 3.

To get the correct value do:

mysqli::insert_id + mysqli::affected_rows) - 1

This has been document but it is a bit obscure.