How to set default current date in jpa for mysql

Question

I am trying to generate current date automatically but getting this error

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server 
version for the right syntax to use near 'CURRENT_DATE' at line 1

@Column(name = "ddate", columnDefinition = "DATE DEFAULT CURRENT_DATE")
private Date ddate;

Answer 1

I would recommend trying the CreationTimestamp annotation paired with nullable = false, updatable = false

@Column(name = "ddate", nullable = false, updatable = false)
@CreationTimestamp
private Date ddate;

The above strategy uses the current VM date, so use this if you are ok with that.

Answer 2

As a alternative to the @cjnash's answer, there is @CreatedDate annotation which is provided by Spring to keep track of created time of entities.

Main difference of those annotations is @CreationTimestamp applicable to Hibernate only while @CreatedDate applicable to all stores covered by Spring Data: JPA, JDBC, R2DBC, MongoDb, Cassandra and so on.

But for this to work, there are few steps to config.

1. Annotate Entity class with '@EntityListeners' annotation.

2. Create fields by annotating them with '@CreatedDate'.

3. Add @EnableJpaAuditing annotation to 'App' class. This annotation is used to enable auditing in JPA via annotation configuration.

    // Entity Class
    @Entity
    @Table(name = "my_employee")
    @EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class)
    public class Employee {
    .....
    .....
    @CreatedDate
    @Column(name = "ddate")
    private Date ddate;
   
    .....
    .....
   
    }
   
    // App Class
    @SpringBootApplication
    @EnableJpaAuditing
    public class App {
    .....
    .....
    }
   

Check this example for more details.