Add default value of datetime field in SQL Server to a timestamp

Question

I\'ve got a table that collects forms submitted from our website, but for some reason, when they created the table, they didn\'t put a timestamp in the table. I want it to e

Answer 1

Disallow Nulls on the column and set a default on the column of getdate()

/*Deal with any existing NULLs*/
UPDATE YourTable SET created_date=GETDATE() /*Or some sentinel value 
                                                '19000101' maybe?*/
WHERE created_date IS NULL


/*Disallow NULLs*/
ALTER TABLE YourTable ALTER COLUMN created_date DATE NOT NULL

/*Add default constraint*/
ALTER TABLE YourTable ADD CONSTRAINT
    DF_YourTable_created_date DEFAULT GETDATE() FOR created_date