FuelPHP mysql_timestamp in models not really DRY

Question

When creating a model with Oil I realized that that method is always inserted:

protected static $_observers = array(
    'Orm\Observer_CreatedAt' => array(
        'events' => array('before_insert'),
        'mysql_timestamp' => false,
    ),
    'Orm\Observer_UpdatedAt' => array(
        'events' => array('before_update'),
        'mysql_timestamp' => false,
    ),
);

Also (with Model_Soft):

protected static $_soft_delete = array(
    'mysql_timestamp' => false,
);

But, at the same time, the default value in the Observer classes is false:

class Observer_UpdatedAt extends Observer
{
    /**
     * @var  bool  set true to use mySQL timestamp instead of UNIX timestamp
     */
    public static $mysql_timestamp = false;

Is there any need to specify a value that is already the default one?

Bonus: Is there any reason to use datetime instead of timestamp by default? (Apart from the remote possibility that my application will be still online after 2038)

Answer 1

Oil puts the default values in for parameters that are most commonly changed after generation. You can omit default values.

Regarding the datetime/timestamp question, in MySQL timestamp is possible to be configured to have a default value of CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, and to be updated to CURRENT_TIMESTAMP upon updating. If you need this functionality, datetime is not sufficient. However datetime can have the value of 0000-00-00 00:00:00, which is not possible to represent with a timestamp (if you don't consider null the same). While created_at, and updated_at is designed for a specific purpose, you can always think of using it in a way that is aided by this FuelPHP mechanism, but is a slightly different purpose. In these cases you might need datetime (to represent dates that are not possible with a timestamp).

I hope this helps.