Timestamp Default Data

[j.silver]

Dear all,

 

For an e.commerce project, I have the following for a carts table, which seem to be the practice in assigning date/time to such table:

 

`date_created` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,

`date_modified` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00',

 

What are the merits in assigning default values as such for each date?

[Ingolme]

Starting date_modified at zero can indicate that the item has never been modified before.

 

date_created has to be set as soon as the row is created.

[justsomeguy]

You have to use a default value if you define the column as not null, but don't include those columns in the insert statement. You can allow null values in a column and then if you don't include them in the insert they will default to null. date_modified would make more sense to default to a null value instead of a point 2016 years ago.