Re: Timestamp vs Datetime

[Allen Arakaki]

BTW,

I use DATETIME for just about everything rather than TIMESTAMP. When I update tables, it's just as easy for me to set lastX=NOW(). The only situations I can think of to use TIMESTAMP is if you use FOREIGN KEY CONSTRAINTS ON UPDATE CASCADE - but from my last example, that does not appear to update the TIMESTAMP column. Unless that is a bug, there's probably very little reason to use TIMESTAMP over DATETIME.

I believe there's a bug in the JConnector v3.1.8 RS.getString() method when attempting to retrieve TIMESTAMP values (doesn't happen for DATETIME values) where the string returned isn't in the '0000-00-00 00:00:00' format instead it's something like '0000-00-00 00:00:00:0000' (with extra appended values). I don't remember the bug number, but it only occurs in 4.1.? (they may have fixed it in 4.1.13) and does not happen in 4.0.X. The workaround is RS.getTimestamp() ... if you don't mind using java.util.Date