Automating timestamps

Almost every model representing content should have creation and modification dates to show the content actuality, revisions, and so on. In Yii there are two good ways to automate this, which are as follows:

• Overriding beforeValidate

• Using the CTimestampBehavior behavior from Zii

We will see how to apply these to blog posts. We will use Unix timestamps to store the date and time.

Getting ready

1. Create a new application by using yiic webapp as described in the official guide at the following URL:

   http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/en/quickstart.first-app

2. Set up a database connection and create a table named post as follows:

   DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `post`;
   CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `post` (
     `id` INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
     `title` VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
     `text` TEXT NOT NULL,
     `created_on` INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
     `modified_on` INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
     PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
   );

3. Generate a Post model using Gii.

4. Remove everything about created_on and modified_on...