title: Auto Increment after delete in MySQL
body: <p>I have a MySQL table with a primary key field that has AUTO_INCREMENT on.
  After reading other posts on here I've noticed people with the same problem and with varied answers. Some recommend not using this feature, others state it can't be 'fixed'.</p>
  
  <p>I have:</p>
  
  <pre><code>table: course
  fields: courseID, courseName
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Example: number of records in the table: 18. If I delete records 16, 17 and 18 - I would expect the next record entered to have the courseID of 16, however it will be 19 because the last entered courseID was 18.</p>
  
  <p>My SQL knowledge isn't amazing but is there anyway to refresh or update this count with a query (or a setting in the phpMyAdmin interface)?</p>
  
  <p>This table will relate to others in a database.</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>Given all the advice, I have decided to ignore this 'problem'. I will simply delete and add records whilst letting the auto increment do it's job. I guess it doesn't really matter what the number is since it's only being used as a unique identifier and doesn't have a (as mentioned above) <em>business</em> meaning.</p>
  
  <p>For those who I may have confused with my original post: I do not wish to use this field to know how many records I have. I just wanted the database to look neat and have a bit more consistency.</p>