Wikipedia.org defines timestamp in very clear manner, as
follows:
A timestamp is a sequence of characters, denoting the date
and/or time at which a certain event occurred.
To go ahead, let us create a table with the following
structure:
Listing 1
CREATE TABLE MyTestTable(RowID INT IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
[TimeStamp] TIMESTAMP, [SmallDateTime] SMALLDATETIME,
[DateTime] DATETIME)
OR
Listing 2
CREATE TABLE MyTestTable1(RowID INT IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
TIMESTAMP, [SmallDateTime] SMALLDATETIME,
[DateTime] DATETIME)
Notice the second statement - If we just specify data type
TIMESTAMP without a column name for it then SQL Server automatically sets its
column name as "Timestamp."
Please note that a table can have only one
TIMESTAMP column. We can have either of a TIMESTAMP or ROWVERSION column type
in table, but not both. I have used column type TIMESTAMP in the above
table CREATE command.