Default values for database columns

If you do an upgrade from a MailerQ version 0.7.2 or earlier to a later version, the structure of the database is different than when you do a fresh install. This is not a problem, but if you like you can alter the database yourself to overcome this.

As is also mentioned in the documentation, MailerQ automatically creates its database tables the first time it starts up. You do therefore not have to setup the database yourself. On top of that, if you upgrade MailerQ from an earlier version to the latest version, MailerQ will automatically create the tables that were added in the new release, and alter the tables that have a different structure.

However, if you upgrade MailerQ from release 0.7.2 or lower to one of its higher releases, there will be a very small change to the table structure that is not automatically applied to existing tables. The difference is that up to version 0.7.2 MailerQ did not use default values for the rows in the database, but from higher releases on it does. This is in normal circumstances not much of a problem as MailerQ did and does explicitly set all columns when new rows are inserted, and it thus does not rely on default column values.

So, if you do a fresh install of a MailerQ version higher than 0.7.2, your database tables will be created with certain (unused) default values for newly inserted rows, but if you upgrade MailerQ from an earlier version, those defaults are not set. This is not a problem.

However, if you do like to set the default values for the tables in the database, you are free to do so. You may alter the tables to contain default values. This could be especially useful if you access the database directly with scripts of your own, and you do not want to specify each column in your queries.

In case you have no idea what this article is about, it is perfectly safe to ignore it. Whether you do a fresh install or an upgrade, MailerQ will behave the same.