Re: [MySQL] can you have a no-default column; error if unspecified?

[Shankar Unni <shankar@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bennett Haselton wrote:

> NOT NULL doesn't mean that the column doesn't have a default, it just 
> means that the default is not null.  


In other, more conventional (:-)), databases, NOT NULL means simply "NOT 
NULL", and implies nothing about defaults - that's a MySQL-ism.  (Thus, a 
NOT NULL column with no default should give an error if you insert without 
specifying a value for that column, since the "default DEFAULT" should be 
NULL).

It's possible to compile MySQL with a special *compile-time* flag (see the 
flag -DDONT_USE_DEFAULT_FIELDS in http://www.mysql.com/doc/B/u/Bugs.html 
and http://www.mysql.com/doc/c/o/configure_options.html).

And I'm glad to see that this behavior is listed as a bug rather than as a 
feature :-), which gives me hope that someday it will be tackled (to at 
least make it a run-time configurable option rather than a compile-time 
forced option).
--
Shankar.



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