How to insert default values in SQL table?

Zbigniew Wazeliniak picture Zbigniew Wazeliniak · Jan 8, 2012 · Viewed 165.9k times · Source

I have a table like this:

create table1 (field1 int,
               field2 int default 5557,
               field3 int default 1337, 
               field4 int default 1337)

I want to insert a row which has the default values for field2 and field4.

I've tried insert into table1 values (5,null,10,null) but it doesn't work and ISNULL(field2,default) doesn't work either.

How can I tell the database to use the default value for the column when I insert a row?

Answer

gbn picture gbn · Jan 8, 2012

Best practice it to list your columns so you're independent of table changes (new column or column order etc)

insert into table1 (field1, field3)  values (5,10)

However, if you don't want to do this, use the DEFAULT keyword

insert into table1 values (5, DEFAULT, 10, DEFAULT)