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Software Engineering vocabulary · Databases and Persistence

Default value

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCommon term

In software engineering, default value means: The value a column gets automatically when a new row is inserted without a value for that column, such as 0, 'pending' or the current time.

In Turkish: varsayılan değer

How it is used

Set with DEFAULT in CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE, for example created_at TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP. Defaults are important when adding a NOT NULL column to a table that already has data, because existing rows need a value too.

Example sentences

  1. Give the status column a default value of 'pending'.

  2. The new column has no default value, so all old rows show NULL.

Common collocations

  • set a default value
  • DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
  • default value of
  • column default
  • columnA vertical part of a table with a name and a data type, holding one kind of information for every row, such as email or created_at.
  • NULLA special marker meaning that a value is missing or unknown. It is not the same as zero or an empty string.
  • ALTER TABLEThe SQL statement that changes the structure of an existing table, for example to add, rename or drop a column or to add a constraint.
  • constraintA rule set on a table or column that the database enforces automatically, rejecting any data that would break it.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Databases and Persistence

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