Database insertion problem

Question

Hello,
I was wondering how to solve a problem at inserting new rows in a mysql database. I have a table named employees and one named addresses. In order to link an address to an employee I use an address_id at the employee table. Though, the addresses table is also used by so many other tables. The problem is that every time I insert an employee to the database (and therefore an address) I need to know the address_id so that I can insert it into the proper column in the employee row. The address_id is autonumerical. One solution I thought was to query the addresses table before the insertion to get the next address_id. Then use that number in the employees table. Though, I imagine that when the web applications is used by a large number of people at the same time, there are going to be some concurrency problems.
What can be a better solution?
Is there a better data model I could use for this matter?
I hope I made myself clear in my writing,
Thank you,
Alfredo Fern�ndez A.

Answer 1

Typically you do the followng.
1. Start a transaction.
2. Insert address - which also returns the id of the insertion.
3. Insert the employee.
4. Commit the transaction.
Step 2 depends on what specific database you are using.
It can also depends on the business rules for an address.