I know this is probablly really, really simple, but I can't figure out
how to retreive the next autoindex in a table, so when I want to
obtain it, I've been inserting a new row, then finding the unique
index from some combination of other values that I know will be
unique.

So I would appreciate you're help in this regard:
1. What's the appropriate SQL query to get the next autoindex from a
table (say 'user').
2. How do I obtain that value in PHP (as in, what would I use as the
index in the array returned by mysql_fetch_assoc())

Thanks!

PS - I'm asking a PHP question in a MySQL forum because I didn't get a
response after several days in alt.php.sql - not because I'm a
clueless idiot who expects all MySQL users to use PHP.