There's 'Default' attribute set in the default Magento installation. You have no ability to remove that attribute set using admin gui (Remove button is hidden for this set). I did not found something like system flag or other singularities for this set in eav_attribute_set. I need an ability to detect this attribute set's id programmatically in different installations. Maybe someone faced with task like this one and could give me the clue. Thanks
2 Answers
This should give you what you need:
Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getDefaultAttributeSetId();
Additional info:
The default attribute set id is stored in the table eav_entity_type
for each entity. The sales related entities have this set to 0 because they are stored in flat tables now. But before ce-1.4.0.1 they were EAV also and had an attribute set.
A better answer would be this:
Mage::getModel('my_module/my_entity')->getResource()->getEntityType()->getDefaultAttributeSetId();
Marius's answer is also good, but only works for products and not for custom EAV models you may have created.
My answer works for all EAV types, including custom ones.