can i put last auto increment id into a variable?

Hello all. I'm new to php/mysql and I'm having problems. I've searched everywhere it seems, and to no avail.

Right after inserting into the db table, I need to figure out a way to get the last auto incremented id and put it into a php variable. My reason for this is that I want to concatenate the last id onto a url for a link to follow in an auto email. Here's what I've got and where I'm stumped:

<?php

$db = mysql_connect("localhost", "root");
mysql_select_db("mydb",$db);

$sql = "INSERT INTO person (first,last,city,state,workplace,email,comments) VALUES ('$first','$last','$city','$state','$workplace','$ email','$comments')";

// run SQL against the DB

$result = mysql_query($sql);

// this is where the problem begins...

$lastid = mysql_query("SELECT id FROM person WHERE email=$email",$db);

// end of problem (note: i've tried using last_insert_id with no success--it always returns zero)

$send_from_email = "me@mywebsite.com" ;
$send_from_name = "Me" ;
$subject = "Thank you" ;
$mailto = $email ;

$messageproper =

"http://www.mywebsite.com/find.php3?id=" .

$lastid ;

mail($mailto, $subject, $messageproper, "From: "$send_from_name" <$send_from_email>nReply-To: "$send_from_name" <$send_from_email>nX-Mailer: chfeedback.php 2.0" );


}

There is MySQL function in PHP itself to achieve this.. mysql_insert_id() function returns the ID generated for an AUTO_INCREMENT field by the previous INSERT query.

$lastId=mysql_insert_id();

Use the above line in your problem area

Thanks so much Nazly! I'd say that Allman quote suits you well! I appreciate the help.