You can access and update a serial by serial name and a reserved word pair.
serial_identifier.CURRENT_VALUE
serial_identifier.NEXT_VALUE
The following example shows how to create a table athlete_idx where athlete numbers and names are stored and how to create the instances by using a serial order_no.
CREATE TABLE athlete_idx( code INT, name VARCHAR(40) );
INSERT INTO athlete_idx VALUES (order_no.NEXT_VALUE, 'Park');
INSERT INTO athlete_idx VALUES (order_no.NEXT_VALUE, 'Kim');
INSERT INTO athlete_idx VALUES (order_no.NEXT_VALUE, 'Choo');
INSERT INTO athlete_idx VALUES (order_no.NEXT_VALUE, 'Lee');SELECT * FROM athlete_idx;
code name
===================================
10000 'Park'
10002 'Kim'
10004 'Choo'
10006 'Lee'
When you use a serial for the first time after creating it, NEXT_VALUE returns the initial value. Subsequently, the sum of the current value and the increment are returned.