Sanders Kaufman wrote:

> Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>
>> Sanders Kaufman wrote:
>>
>>> When you create a table, what's the syntax for setting default values.
>>>
>>> For example (pseudo):
>>> CREATE TABLE mytable (
>>> id INT PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
>>> myoption DEFAULT ['option1', 'option2']
>>> )
>>
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're trying to do. What is the type of
>> "myoption"? And a column can have only one default value.
>
>
> The type doesn't matter.
> I just want something (logically) like "DEFAULT IN (a, b, c)".
>
> I'm not sure, but I think some folks call in an ENUM?


Now we need to narrow down your question just a bit - the answer depends on how
you answer the following:

1) do you want to restrict the values entered into this table?
example:
create table somename ( col1 varchar(20),
col2 enum('0','1','2'));

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/enum.html

2) if no value is specified, do you want it to DEFAULT to some value?
see example below
if yes, what single value do you want as a default?

example:
mysql> create table somename ( col1 varchar(20),
col2 enum('0','1','2') default '0');
Query OK, 0 rows affected (2.19 sec)

***NOTE*** I do not specify col2 and the default value is '0'
mysql> insert into somename (col1) values ('test'),('test1');
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.14 sec)
Records: 2 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0

mysql> select * from somename;
+-------+------+
| col1 | col2 |
+-------+------+
| test | 0 |
| test1 | 0 |
+-------+------+


--
Michael Austin.
Database Consultant