Insert current date/time using now() in a field using MySQL/PHP

Question

Since MySQL evidently cannot automatically insert the function now() in a datetime field in adding new records like some other databases, based on comments, I\'m explicitly tryi

Answer 1

Like Pekka said, it should work this way. I can't reproduce the problem with this self-contained example:

setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES, false);

    $pdo->exec('
        CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE soFoo (
            id int auto_increment,
            first int,
            last int,
            whenadded DATETIME,
            primary key(id)
        )
    ');
    $pdo->exec('INSERT INTO soFoo (first,last,whenadded) VALUES (0,1,Now())');
    $pdo->exec('INSERT INTO soFoo (first,last,whenadded) VALUES (0,2,Now())');
    $pdo->exec('INSERT INTO soFoo (first,last,whenadded) VALUES (0,3,Now())');

    foreach( $pdo->query('SELECT * FROM soFoo', PDO::FETCH_ASSOC) as $row ) {
        echo join(' | ', $row), "\n";
    }

Which (currently) prints

1 | 0 | 1 | 2012-03-23 16:00:18
2 | 0 | 2 | 2012-03-23 16:00:18
3 | 0 | 3 | 2012-03-23 16:00:18

And here's (almost) the same script using a TIMESTAMP field and DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP:

setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES, false);

    $pdo->exec('
        CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE soFoo (
            id int auto_increment,
            first int,
            last int,
            whenadded TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
            primary key(id)
        )
    ');
    $pdo->exec('INSERT INTO soFoo (first,last) VALUES (0,1)');
    $pdo->exec('INSERT INTO soFoo (first,last) VALUES (0,2)');
    sleep(1);
    $pdo->exec('INSERT INTO soFoo (first,last) VALUES (0,3)');

    foreach( $pdo->query('SELECT * FROM soFoo', PDO::FETCH_ASSOC) as $row ) {
        echo join(' | ', $row), "\n";
    }

Conveniently, the timestamp is converted to the same datetime string representation as in the first example - at least with my PHP/PDO/mysqlnd version.