How do you set a default value for a MySQL Datetime column?

IMPORTANT EDIT: It is now possible to achieve this with DATETIME fields since MySQL 5.6.5, take a look at the other post below...

Previous versions can't do that with DATETIME...

But you can do it with TIMESTAMP:

mysql> create table test (str varchar(32), ts TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> desc test;
+-------+-------------+------+-----+-------------------+-------+
| Field | Type        | Null | Key | Default           | Extra |
+-------+-------------+------+-----+-------------------+-------+
| str   | varchar(32) | YES  |     | NULL              |       | 
| ts    | timestamp   | NO   |     | CURRENT_TIMESTAMP |       | 
+-------+-------------+------+-----+-------------------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> insert into test (str) values ("demo");
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from test;
+------+---------------------+
| str  | ts                  |
+------+---------------------+
| demo | 2008-10-03 22:59:52 | 
+------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

CAVEAT: IF you define a column with CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON as default, you will need to ALWAYS specify a value for this column or the value will automatically reset itself to "now()" on update. This means that if you do not want the value to change, your UPDATE statement must contain "[your column name] = [your column name]" (or some other value) or the value will become "now()". Weird, but true. I am using 5.5.56-MariaDB

You can use triggers to do this type of stuff.

CREATE TABLE `MyTable` (
`MyTable_ID`  int UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`MyData`  varchar(10) NOT NULL ,
`CreationDate`  datetime NULL ,
`UpdateDate`  datetime NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY (`MyTable_ID`)
)
;

CREATE TRIGGER `MyTable_INSERT` BEFORE INSERT ON `MyTable`
FOR EACH ROW BEGIN
        -- Set the creation date
    SET new.CreationDate = now();

        -- Set the udpate date
    Set new.UpdateDate = now();
END;

CREATE TRIGGER `MyTable_UPDATE` BEFORE UPDATE ON `MyTable`
FOR EACH ROW BEGIN
        -- Set the udpate date
    Set new.UpdateDate = now();
END;

this is indeed terrible news.here is a long pending bug/feature request for this. that discussion also talks about the limitations of timestamp data type.

I am seriously wondering what is the issue with getting this thing implemented.

You can use now() to set the value of a datetime column, but keep in mind that you can't use that as a default value.

Working fine with MySQL 8.x

CREATE TABLE `users` (
      `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
      `dateCreated` datetime DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
      `dateUpdated` datetime DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
      PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
      UNIQUE KEY `mobile_UNIQUE` (`mobile`)
    ) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=2 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 COLLATE=utf8mb4_0900_ai_ci;

If you are trying to set default value as NOW(), I don't think MySQL supports that. In MySQL, you cannot use a function or an expression as the default value for any type of column, except for the TIMESTAMP data type column, for which you can specify the CURRENT_TIMESTAMP as the default.

I think it simple in mysql since mysql the inbuilt function called now() which gives current time(time of that insert).

So your query should look like similarly

CREATE TABLE defaultforTime(
    `creation_time`     DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
    `modification_time` DATETIME default now()
);

Thank you.

If you set ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP it will take current time when row data update in table.

 CREATE TABLE bar(
        `create_time` TIMESTAMP CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
        `update_time` TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
    )