MySQL Bugs: #37190: It is not possible to define a NULL timestamp column

Bug #37190	It is not possible to define a NULL timestamp column
Submitted:	4 Jun 2008 10:54	Modified:	5 Jun 2008 8:03
Reporter:	Daniel Haas	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Workbench	Severity:	S3 (Non-critical)
Version:	5.0.22	OS:	Windows (Vista)
Assigned to:		CPU Architecture:	Any

Description:
Since MySQL 5.0 it is possible to declare timestamp-columns to contain the value NULL. (See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/timestamp.html)

However in MySQL Workbench it is not possible to define such a column in a table, because there are no options to do so. 

How to repeat:
Create a Column with timestamp type and try to define that this columns is NULLable.

Suggested fix:
The Flags-Box on the right in the table columns-editor should provide a checkbox "NULL" when the type of the column is TIMESTAMP. This should then add the NULL Flag to the SQL-Create for the table/column.

Just do not check NN checkbox for TIMESTAMP column and you'll get something like (I had exported CREATE script from 5.0.22):

SET @OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS=@@UNIQUE_CHECKS, UNIQUE_CHECKS=0;
SET @OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@@FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS, FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;
SET @OLD_SQL_MODE=@@SQL_MODE, SQL_MODE='TRADITIONAL';

CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS `mydb` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_swedish_ci ;
USE `mydb`;

-- -----------------------------------------------------
-- Table `mydb`.`table1`
-- -----------------------------------------------------
CREATE  TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `mydb`.`table1` (
  `idtable1` INT NOT NULL ,
  `c1` VARCHAR(45) NULL ,
  `c2` TIMESTAMP NULL ,
  PRIMARY KEY (`idtable1`) )
ENGINE = InnoDB;

SET SQL_MODE=@OLD_SQL_MODE;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS;
SET UNIQUE_CHECKS=@OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS;

So, what is the problem?

Ah, so I think the problem is that I did not understand that not clicking the NN column adds an explicit NULL to the table definition. Sorry I must have overlooked that. :-)