Having both a Created and Last Updated timestamp columns in MySQL 4.0

Xenph Yan picture Xenph Yan · Nov 6, 2008 · Viewed 154.6k times · Source

I have the following table schema;

CREATE TABLE `db1`.`sms_queue` (
  `Id` INTEGER UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `Message` VARCHAR(160) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'Unknown Message Error',
  `CurrentState` VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'None',
  `Phone` VARCHAR(14) DEFAULT NULL,
  `Created` TIMESTAMP NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `LastUpdated` TIMESTAMP NOT NULL ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  `TriesLeft` tinyint NOT NULL DEFAULT 3,
  PRIMARY KEY (`Id`)
)
ENGINE = InnoDB;

It fails with the following error:

ERROR 1293 (HY000): Incorrect table definition; there can be only one TIMESTAMP column with CURRENT_TIMESTAMP in DEFAULT or ON UPDATE clause.

My question is, can I have both of those fields? or do I have to manually set a LastUpdated field during each transaction?

Answer

Robert Gamble picture Robert Gamble · Nov 6, 2008

From the MySQL 5.5 documentation:

One TIMESTAMP column in a table can have the current timestamp as the default value for initializing the column, as the auto-update value, or both. It is not possible to have the current timestamp be the default value for one column and the auto-update value for another column.

Changes in MySQL 5.6.5:

Previously, at most one TIMESTAMP column per table could be automatically initialized or updated to the current date and time. This restriction has been lifted. Any TIMESTAMP column definition can have any combination of DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP clauses. In addition, these clauses now can be used with DATETIME column definitions. For more information, see Automatic Initialization and Updating for TIMESTAMP and DATETIME.