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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-11T22:36:25+00:00

I understand that when adding a column to a table containing data in SQL

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I understand that when adding a column to a table containing data in SQL server, the column must have a NULL option or a default. Otherwise what would SQL Server pad the new rows with?

I am at a loss as to why I can’t add a NOT NULL column to an empty table however. I have tried this on two instances of SQL 2008 and one instance of SQL 2005 with no problems. However a customer with SQL 2000 does have this problem. Is this related to SQL 2000 or is it an option you can turn off. Let’s hope it’s an option.

Select @@Version

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 – 8.00.760 (Intel X86) Dec 17 2002 14:22:05
Copyright (c) 1988-2003 Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition on Windows
NT 5.1 (Build 2600: Service Pack 3) 

Select count(*) from actinv

0

ALTER TABLE [ActInv] ADD [BATCHNUMBER] NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL

Msg 4901, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
ALTER TABLE only allows columns to be added that can contain nulls or have a
DEFAULT definition specified. Column ‘BATCHNUMBER’ cannot be added to table
‘ActInv’ because it does not allow nulls and does not specify a DEFAULT
definition.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    SQL Server 2000 does not check for an empty table. What you are seeing is an improvement in SQL Server 2005/2008.

    Either of the following two step processes will make the change in SQL Server 2000 against an empty table:

    ALTER TABLE [ActInv] ADD [BATCHNUMBER] NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL CONSTRAINT ActInv_Temp DEFAULT 'foo'
ALTER TABLE [ActInv] DROP CONSTRAINT ActInv_Temp

    go 

    ALTER TABLE [ActInv] ADD [BATCHNUMBER] NVARCHAR(50) NULL 
ALTER TABLE [ActInv] ALTER COLUMN [BATCHNUMBER] NVARCHAR(50) NOT NULL
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