Blocking '0000-00-00' from MySQL Date Fields

Question

I have a database where old code likes to insert \'0000-00-00\' in Date and DateTime columns instead of a real date. So I have the following two questions:

1. Is

Answer 1

set the timestamp by default is maybe an option for you, use table change statement for that:

ALTER TABLE mytable CHANGE date_update timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_DATE()

MySQL CURRENT_DATE() documentation at w3c resource

To remove Zero Dates and replace them by e.g. the current date do this:

UPDATE mytable SET date_update = CURRENT_DATE() where date_update = "0000-00-00"