CakePHP: auto-set model create and update dates

Is there a way to configure CakePHP models to automatically set timestamps, such as created_on and updated_on, when saving the object?

I'm thinking of an equivalent to Django's DateTimeField's auto_now and auto_now_add options.

I've heard this is a controversial practice in some frameworks, but I want to do it anyway.

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If you can't do this, do people normally set the timestamps in the beforeSave() handlers, perhaps by checking if the model data already contains an id field and setting a creation data accordingly?

Thanks, and apologies if I've missed the relevant bit in the docs.

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Yes, CakePHP does this automagically for the fields created and modified.

In MySQL, the type for these fields should be DATETIME (or DATE) and NULLable.

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If you name your fields created and modified and make them of type datetime, Cake will handle the rest. http://book.cakephp.org/complete/1000/Models#created-and-modified-1015

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Actually, use "now()" for updating datetime in mysql is simple and easy.

$updateField = array('last_login'=>'now()');