Question

I have this table on the SQL Server, which is updated if someone send a specific sms message to a specific number.

What i did is i entered a new table, which is a timestamp one.
Now, the issue is, when a new row is added i get this in the timestamp value:

<binary data>

Why does this happen?
What should i do?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you want to record the date and time when a row was inserted use a datetime (or datetime2, if using SQL Server 2008 or later) column with a default constraint:

ALTER TABLE tab add time_added datetime2
ALTER TABLE tab add constraint DF_tab_time_added
    DEFAULT (CURRENT_TIMESTAMP) for time_added

timestamp is a (badly named) synonym for rowversion, which has no relationship with an actual date and time:

timestamp is the synonym for the rowversion data type

The rowversion data type is just an incrementing number and does not preserve a date or a time.