Defining Composite Key with Auto Increment in MySQL

Question

Scenario:

I have a table which references two foreign keys, and for each unique combination of these foreign keys, has its own auto_increment column

Answer 1

I don't fully understand your increment requirement on the test_id column, but if you want an ~autoincrement sequence that restarts on every unique combination of (app_id, test_id), you can do an INSERT ... SELECT FROM the same table, like so:

mysql> INSERT INTO `issue_log` (`sr_no`, `app_id`, `test_id`, `issue_name`) SELECT
           IFNULL(MAX(`sr_no`), 0) + 1 /* next sequence number */,
           3 /* desired app_id */,
           1 /* desired test_id */,
           'Name of new row'
           FROM `issue_log` /* specify the table name as well */
       WHERE `app_id` = 3 AND `test_id` = 1 /* same values as in inserted columns */

This assumes a table definition with no declared AUTO_INCREMENT column. You're essentially emulating autoincrement behavior with the IFNULL(MAX()) + 1 clause, but the manual emulation works on arbitrary columns, unlike the built-in autoincrement.

Note that the INSERT ... SELECT being a single query ensures atomicity of the operation. InnoDB will gap-lock the appropriate index, and many concurrent processes can execute this kind of query while still producing non-conflicting sequences.