On Mar 31, 11:58 pm, strawberry <zac.ca...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> With me so far?
>

I lost you at "OK, bear with me."


No, sorry --



Seriously, though -- how do you know which types are prolific before
the ID's are assigned?

Assuming you know which types are prolific ahead of time, just re-
arrange the rows such that the types that are supposed to be "even"
have even ID's, and "odds" are odd. End of problem.



If you *don't* know which ones are prolific ahead of time, then you're
using the wrong method of assigning breaks. An auto-increment column
is not a good choice to use as an "attribute" of the "real world
object." It's better to leave it as an internal-row-identifier, such
as for purposes of joining to other tables, or for uniquely
identifying a row when all other attributes are identical.

Instead add a new column where you can change its value later after
you've determined which row should be assigned what.



You might want to use a separate table to assign breaks. E.g., one
type is prolific this week, but a different one is prolific next
week. Just update the "break" table, joined by type name to the
"frail_pool" table.


Hope that's ful.