how to change a text column that default to null to default to '' in a rails migration

Question

I am trying to write a migration to handle the null -> '' conversion but it doesn't seem to be working. I have:

def up
  change_column :items, :detail, :text, :default => ''
end

Is this correct syntax?

thx

Answer 1

That looks about right.

You should be aware, however, if you're using MySQL you can not set a default value to a TEXT or BLOB field.

Answer 2

Use should use change_column_default(table_name, column_name, dafault_value) This question has been already asked here: Rails migrations: Undo default setting for a column