What is the best way to retrieve the highest ID from a database in PHP?

To retrieve the highest ID from a database in PHP, you can use a SQL query with the MAX() function to get the maximum value of the ID column. This can be useful when you need to generate a new unique ID for a new record in the database.

// Connect to the database
$connection = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Check connection
if ($connection->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $connection->connect_error);
}

// Query to retrieve the highest ID
$query = "SELECT MAX(id) AS max_id FROM table_name";
$result = $connection->query($query);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    $row = $result->fetch_assoc();
    $highest_id = $row['max_id'];
    echo "The highest ID is: " . $highest_id;
} else {
    echo "No records found";
}

// Close connection
$connection->close();