MySQL field is autoincrememnt - insert?

[Pres Brawner]

I'm writing a record to a table in a MySQL database. The field is set up to autoincrement.
How do I handle this?
When I write my PreparedStatement, do I include a placeholder?
tableName.setInt(1,??? what do I put here? I don't know what this value will be?)
Do I have to lock the table, get the highest value, increment by one, unlock the table, add my record (and hope nobody wrote a record between my unlock and my write)?
Thanks,
Pres

[Jamie Robertson]

on your insert using PreparedStatement, pretend like the column doesn't exist. eg. table emp has 2 columns-->id(auto-increment) and name(text/varchar/etc)

ps = con.prepareStatement("INSERT INTO emp (name) VALUES (?)");
ps.setString(1, "John Doe");
ps.executeQuery();

works for me on MSAccess,
Jamie