Kudos for managing to drag up such an obscure piece of functionality :-) I can see where it would be useful, though.
As to your question, though: given that that page indicates that it will reuse deleted sequence numbers, I think your best bet would be select @id := count(*)+1 from table where cluster='clusterA' AND file='fileA' ; - should be slightly faster than a max(), I think. That in a trigger on your table should emulate the behaviour pretty closely. Am I mistaken, or does your code try to start from sequence 0 ? -- Bier met grenadyn Is als mosterd by den wyn Sy die't drinkt, is eene kwezel Hy die't drinkt, is ras een ezel