Microsoft recommends using Rowversion over timestamp, but I can not find "rowversion" data type inside my sql server 2008 R2 [closed]

Question

Microsoft here mentioned that we should use the rowversion data type over Timestamps. Now inside my SQL Server 2008 R2, I want to create a column with the Rowversion data type. But in my SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Studio, I cannot find such a data type:

Also when I tried altering existing column named timestamp which is of type timestamp using this statement:

ALTER TABLE [SkillManagement].[dbo].[Customer]
ALTER COLUMN timestamp rowversion 

I get this error:

Msg 4927, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Cannot alter column 'timestamp' to be data type timestamp

Can anyone advise?

EDIT

Answer 1

rowversion is just an alias for timestamp. Under the covers, they are the exact same thing.

If you're using the GUI (prior to 2012), you have to use timestamp. (Peripheral hint: please stop using the GUI.)

But it doesn't stop there. Even if you generate this table using DDL:

CREATE TABLE dbo.x(y ROWVERSION);

The data type in the metadata will be timestamp:

SELECT t.name 
  FROM sys.types AS t
  INNER JOIN sys.columns AS c
    ON c.system_type_id = t.system_type_id
  INNER JOIN sys.tables AS st
    ON c.[object_id] = st.[object_id]
  INNER JOIN sys.schemas AS s
    ON st.[schema_id] = s.[schema_id]
  WHERE st.name = N'x'
    AND s.name = N'dbo'
    AND c.name = N'y';

And if you generate a script for this table, it will also include timestamp:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[x](
    [y] [timestamp] NOT NULL
) ON [PRIMARY]

And in fact:

SELECT * FROM sys.types WHERE name = N'rowversion';

Results:

----
0 row(s) affected.

So there isn't even a type in the system named rowversion - any DDL that includes it gets parsed and translated before the DDL is even executed against the server.

Microsoft has been a walking contradiction on this since they first introduced the poorly-named data type (which also happens to violate the SQL standard, which dictates that the timestamp data type should be used for date/time data). I asked back in 2007 for this to be properly deprecated. My Connect item is still active (archive)- feel free to vote and, more importantly, comment about how the documentation contradicts the possible usage of the product.

Others have written about this too.

Answer 2

Timestamp is a synonym for the rowversion datatype.

You can find it in this MSDN article.

Microsoft has marked timestamp as deprecated as you can see in the article mention above, but still in SQL Server 2012 Mgmt Studio uses timestamp even if you create the table with the rowversion datatype.