How do I find a default constraint using INFORMATION_SCHEMA?

Question

As I understand it, default value constraints aren't part of the ISO standard, so they don't appear in INFORMATION_SCHEMA. INFORMATION_SCHEMA seems like the best choice for this kind of task because it is cross-platform, but if the information isn't available one should use the object catalog views (sys.*) instead of system table views, which are deprecated in SQL Server 2005 and later.

Below is pretty much the same as @user186476's answer. It returns the name of the default value constraint for a given column. (For non-SQL Server users, you need the name of the default in order to drop it, and if you don't name the default constraint yourself, SQL Server creates some crazy name like "DF_TableN_Colum_95AFE4B5". To make it easier to change your schema in the future, always explicitly name your constraints!)

-- returns name of a column's default value constraint 
SELECT
    default_constraints.name
FROM 
    sys.all_columns

        INNER JOIN
    sys.tables
        ON all_columns.object_id = tables.object_id

        INNER JOIN 
    sys.schemas
        ON tables.schema_id = schemas.schema_id

        INNER JOIN
    sys.default_constraints
        ON all_columns.default_object_id = default_constraints.object_id

WHERE 
        schemas.name = 'dbo'
    AND tables.name = 'tablename'
    AND all_columns.name = 'columnname'

You can use the following to narrow the results even more by specifying the Table Name and Column Name that the Default Constraint correlates to:

select * from sysobjects o 
inner join syscolumns c
on o.id = c.cdefault
inner join sysobjects t
on c.id = t.id
where o.xtype = 'D'
and c.name = 'Column_Name'
and t.name = 'Table_Name'

There seems to be no Default Constraint names in the Information_Schema views.

use SELECT * FROM sysobjects WHERE xtype = 'D' AND name = @name to find a default constraint by name

The script below lists all the default constraints and the default values for the user tables in the database in which it is being run:

SELECT  
        b.name AS TABLE_NAME,
        d.name AS COLUMN_NAME,
        a.name AS CONSTRAINT_NAME,
        c.text AS DEFAULT_VALUE
FROM sys.sysobjects a INNER JOIN
        (SELECT name, id
         FROM sys.sysobjects 
         WHERE xtype = 'U') b on (a.parent_obj = b.id)
                      INNER JOIN sys.syscomments c ON (a.id = c.id)
                      INNER JOIN sys.syscolumns d ON (d.cdefault = a.id)                                          
 WHERE a.xtype = 'D'        
 ORDER BY b.name, a.name

If you want to get a constraint by the column or table names, or you want to get all the constraints in the database, look to other answers. However, if you're just looking for exactly what the question asks, namely, to "test if a given default constraint exists ... by the name of the constraint", then there's a much easier way.

Here's a future-proof answer that doesn't use the sysobjects or other sys tables at all:

IF object_id('DF_CONSTRAINT_NAME', 'D') IS NOT NULL BEGIN
   -- constraint exists, work with it.
END

select c.name, col.name from sys.default_constraints c
    inner join sys.columns col on col.default_object_id = c.object_id
    inner join sys.objects o  on o.object_id = c.parent_object_id
    inner join sys.schemas s on s.schema_id = o.schema_id
where s.name = @SchemaName and o.name = @TableName and col.name = @ColumnName

Is the COLUMN_DEFAULT column of INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS what you are looking for?