Automatically concatenate a value in a coulmn in SQL

Question

Im looking for a way to create a column that is automatically filled with a concatenated value of two inserted values.

Lets say I have a table with first name, last name and full name columns.

When i insert values, i will just insert the first name and last name values where the full name column will have the value of these two concatenated automatically.

My project is to create a work order request number based on machine name and request timestamp.

Is such thing possible ?

Thanks

Answer 1

You want a generated column, available in MySQL 5.7 and later.

For example:

create table demo (
firstName varchar(40),
lastname varchar(40),
fullName varchar(60) as (concat(firstName,' ', lastName))
);

insert demo (firstName,lastName) values ('John', 'Doe'),('Jane','Doe'),('Fred','Smith');

select * from demo;

Output:

firstName   lastname    fullName
John        Doe         John Doe
Jane        Doe         Jane Doe
Fred        Smith       Fred Smith