What's the standard way to determine the number for a primary key?

Question

I'm planning to make a very simple program using php and mySQL. The main page will take information and make a new row in the database with that information. However, I need a number to put in for the primary key. Unfortunately, I have no idea about the normal way to determine what umber to use. Preferably, if I delete a row, that row's key won't ever be reused.

A preliminary search has turned up the AUTOINCREMENT keyword in mySQL. However, I'd still like to know if that will work for what I want and what the common solution to this issue is.

Answer 1

In MySQL that's the standard solution.

CREATE TABLE animals (
     id MEDIUMINT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
     name CHAR(30) NOT NULL,
     PRIMARY KEY (id)
 );