Set defaultValue to todays date in a Sequelize migration

Question

I'm using Node Express with Sequelize and I want to set the defaultValue for the column "date" in the database to todays date. I tried with the following migration, but it didn't work, as it set the default date to be the same date as when I ran the migration. I want it to be set to the same date as when the row is created.

module.exports = {
  up: function (queryInterface, Sequelize) {
    return queryInterface.addColumn(
      'Todos',
      'date',
      {
        type: Sequelize.DATEONLY,
        allowNull: false,
        defaultValue: new Date()
      }
    )
  },

I can't understand how that would work.

Answer 1

You need to use as a default value the MySQL function NOW().

So your column declaration should look like :

{ 
   type: Sequelize.DATEONLY,
   allowNull: false,
   defaultValue: Sequelize.NOW
}

Keep in mind that this will not populate the fields in your migration. They will be empty, since they were not created with sequelize.

Answer 2

Sequelize.NOW will work in future but some versions(I tried 4.43.0) seem not support it. I succeeded in setting now() with using Sequelize.fn('now') .

{
  type: Sequelize.DATEONLY,
  allowNull: false,
  defaultValue: Sequelize.fn('now')
}

Reference: https://github.com/sequelize/sequelize/issues/4679