Timestamp Behavior

[resurtm]

@qiangxue, @samdark, what do you think about the idea of developing good old well-known timestamp behavior in Yii 2.0 too? :-)

[samdark]

Don't think it's a good idea since the amount of code required to implement it nearly equals the amount of code to attach behavior.

[armpogart]

The difference between behavior and implementing it in core is obvious. Many beginner coders are expecting that to be core functionality of the modern framework and I can say from my programming experience, that when I was still learning and was very new to yii I didn't know anything about behaviors and didn't bother to look at them, but I have used core functionality to the fullest from the first days.

Another argument is that many modern ORMs and frameworks implement this in core.

[resurtm]

Old well-known timestamp behaviour ported to 2.0: https://gist.github.com/resurtm/5567517 (might be helpful for someone).

[bwoester]

And another request about this: http://www.yiiframework.com/forum/index.php/topic/43225-activerecord-timestamps/

Just opened another suggestion for a behavior that might be helpful for some. #249 Revision count behavior.
Maybe we can bundle a few behaviors to showcase the feature.

[samdark]

Yeah, showcasing is important. We may reconsider it.

[creocoder]

Vote to add that behavior to core.

[qiangxue]

Class name suggestion: yii\behaviors\AutoTimestamp

[cajoy]

Vote to add to the core as well...

[qiangxue]

Done.

[slavcodev]

Suggest newest behavior, to extends count of timestamp attributes

class AutoTimestamp extends Behavior
{
    public $attributes = array(
        'create_time' => ActiveRecord::EVENT_BEFORE_INSERT,
        'update_time' => ActiveRecord::EVENT_BEFORE_UPDATE,
    );

    public $timestamp;

    public function events()
    {
        $events = array();

        foreach ($this->attributes as $attribute => $event) {
            $events[$event] = function($event) use ($attribute) {
                $event->sender->updateTimestamp($attribute);
            };
        }

        return $events;
    }

    public function updateTimestamp($attribute)
    {
        $this->owner->$attribute = $this->evaluateTimestamp($attribute);
    }

    protected function evaluateTimestamp($attribute)
    {
        if ($this->timestamp instanceof Expression) {
            return $this->timestamp;
        } elseif ($this->timestamp !== null) {
            return call_user_func($this->timestamp);
        } else {
            return time();
        }
    }
}

[samdark]

@slavcodev good idea. @yiisoft/core-developers I think having more than two timestamp fields is possible.

[qiangxue]

Thank you for your suggestion. Done via e69afe3