Submitting current timestamp in CakePHP

Question

What is the method to submit a current timestamp directly on an INSERT or an UPDATE? If I were running regular SQL, I would use the function NOW() for the specific SQL field on submission. How would I do that with CakePHP?

$this->Model->save($this->data)

Answer 1

In CakePHP, you can include the NOW() function unescaped by using DboSource::expression

$this->data['SomeModel']['your_datetime_field'] = DboSource::expression('NOW()');
$this->Model->save($this->data);

This is the preferred way of including MySQL functions in your saves.

http://api.cakephp.org/2.3/class-DboSource.html#_expression

Answer 2

if you add the created and modified columns in you table they will be automatically populated with current time stamp. If the case is different - i.e. you want to populate a field which later on you want to modify, probably using the edorian's solution is best.

Answer 3

You can set timestamp field to auto initialize and auto update

timestampfield TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP

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