Should I always provide default value in php for TEXT fields in mysql

Question

I try to insert a new record in a table using Eloquent ORM included with Laravel Framework the insert statement resulted is as follows:

INSET INTO table_x (field_x, field_y, field_z) VALUES (0, 1, 2)

I receive the following error from MySQL Server:

SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 1364 Field 'field' doesn't have a default value

I do not provide the field in my INSERT statement. The field is of type TEXT and from MySQL docs: "BLOB and TEXT columns cannot have DEFAULT values".

So I always have to provide myself a default value in my php code for TEXT fields? Or maybe should Eloquent take care of this and set an empty string automatically on insert?

Answer 1

MySQL does not support having default values in TEXT columns. So you have to manually tell Laravel/MySQL what to put in that column. For example.

INSERT INTO table_x (field_x, field_y, field_z, your_text_field) VALUES (0, 1, 2, "");

or

INSERT INTO table_x (field_x, field_y, field_z, your_text_field) VALUES (0, 1, 2, NULL);

So in your Eloquent model, you'll have to do something like.

$myModel->your_text_field = '';

or

$myModel->your_text_field = null;

Depending on whether you have set your column to be nullable or not.

---

Update: As Mihai Crăiță the question author commented in my answer, and in GitHub ticket, we can set a default for any columns in the Eloquent model this way, so we don't need to worry about having to set manually all the time.

class MyModel extends Eloquent
{
    protected $attributes = array('your_text_field' => '');

    ...
}