Create boolean column in MySQL with false as default value?

Question

I want to create a table in MySQL with a boolean column whose default value is false. But it's accepting NULL as default...

Answer 1

You have to specify 0 (meaning false) or 1 (meaning true) as the default. Here is an example:

create table mytable (
     mybool boolean not null default 0
);

FYI: boolean is an alias for tinyint(1).

Here is the proof:

mysql> create table mytable (
    ->          mybool boolean not null default 0
    ->     );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.35 sec)

mysql> insert into mytable () values ();
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> select * from mytable;
+--------+
| mybool |
+--------+
|      0 |
+--------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

FYI: My test was done on the following version of MySQL:

mysql> select version();
+----------------+
| version()      |
+----------------+
| 5.0.18-max-log |
+----------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)