Possible to implement a manual increment with just simple SQL INSERT?

Question

I have a primary key that I don\'t want to auto increment (for various reasons) and so I\'m looking for a way to simply increment that field when I INSERT. By simply, I mean

Answer 1

Try this instead:

INSERT INTO Table1 (id, data_field)
SELECT id, '[blob of data]' FROM (SELECT MAX(id) + 1 as id FROM Table1) tbl

I wouldn't recommend doing it that way for any number of reasons though (performance, transaction safety, etc)