insert statement in postgres for data type timestamp without time zone NOT NULL,

Question

Database noob alert: I am trying to insert into a postgres table. The field that I would like to insert in is called make_date.

The field type is timestamp without time zone NOT NULL, How do I insert today's date in there? Like right now's date and time? Something like the below but I am unable to get the right datatype insert format for dateTime.now

insert into inventory_tbl (make_date) values (dateTime.now)

Answer 1

Use now() or CURRENT_TIMESTAMP.

Answer 2

In addition to C. Ramseyer's solution (which is right), if you always (or even usually) want make_date to be the date the record was created, you can set its default to now():

alter table inventory_tbl alter make_date set default now();

Then if you don't include it in the list of columns in your insert, it'll be automatically set to now():

test=> insert into inventory_tbl ( name ) values ('brick'), ('sand'), ('obsidian') returning *;
         make_date          |   name   
----------------------------+----------
 2013-03-21 09:10:59.897666 | brick
 2013-03-21 09:10:59.897666 | sand
 2013-03-21 09:10:59.897666 | obsidian
(3 rows)

INSERT 0 3