How can we apply a NOT NULL constraint to a column of an existing MySQL table?

We can apply the NOT NULL constraint to a column of an existing MySQL table with the help of ALTER TABLE statement.

Syntax

ALTER TABLE table_name MODIFY colum_name datatype NOT NULL; 

Example

mysql> Create table test123(ID INT, Date DATE);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.19 sec)

mysql> Describe test123;

+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type    | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| ID    | int(11) | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
| Date  | date    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.04 sec)

mysql> ALTER TABLE test123 MODIFY ID INT NOT NULL;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.54 sec)
Records: 0  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> Describe test123;
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field | Type    | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| ID    | int(11) | NO   |     | NULL    |       |
| Date  | date    | YES  |     | NULL    |       |
+-------+---------+------+-----+---------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.06 sec)