Auto-number

A real physical column whose value is automatically assigned sequentially when a new row is created – but not via the respective database’s native auto-increment mechanism; it’s managed by IllusionDB itself.

The reason: native mechanisms differ too much between the supported databases (Postgres SERIAL, MySQL/MariaDB AUTO_INCREMENT, SQLite only for its own INTEGER PRIMARY KEY row id) – an app-managed solution, by contrast, works identically across all four engines, including retroactively on an already-existing table (including backfilling the rows already present).

When creating one, only the column name is asked for – no prefix or formatting options.