How to generate auto increment field in select query

For example I have a table with 2 columns, first_name and last_name with these values

Ali           Khani
Elizabette    Amini
Britney       Spears
,...

I want to write a select query that generate a table like this:

1     Ali           Khani
2     Elizabette    Amini
3     Britney       Spears
,...

Thanks for your help.

If it is MySql you can try

SELECT @n := @n + 1 n,
       first_name, 
       last_name
  FROM table1, (SELECT @n := 0) m
 ORDER BY first_name, last_name
 

SQLFiddle

And for SQLServer

SELECT row_number() OVER (ORDER BY first_name, last_name) n,
	   first_name, 
       last_name 
  FROM table1 

SQLFiddle

here's for SQL server, Oracle, PostgreSQL which support window functions.

SELECT	ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY first_name, last_name)	Sequence_no,
		first_name,
		last_name
FROM	tableName

• SQLFiddle Demo

In the case you have no natural partition value and just want an ordered number regardless of the partition you can just do a row_number over a constant, in the following example i've just used 'X'. Hope this helps someone

select 
    ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY num ORDER BY col1) as aliascol1, 
    period_next_id, period_name_long
from 
(
  select distinct col1, period_name_long, 'X' as num
  from {TABLE} 
) as x

DECLARE @id INT 
SET @id = 0 
UPDATE cartemp
SET @id = CarmasterID = @id + 1 
GO