From: Martijn Tonies
Date: April 10 2006 12:18pm
Subject: Re: timestamp & not null
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/196702
Message-Id: <029301c65c98$e8bc8090$cd02a8c0@martijnws>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit


>   I need to create a "commands" table. A program will periodically check
on this table whether
> there's a pending command for it to execute or not. Whatever the reason,
this program might read a command but not acknowledge it's
> execution.
>   Other program will check out whether the command timeout has expired or
not and so act accordingly.
>   I guess I can use some sort of integer in order to represent it as a
unix timestamp, but I would prefer to use a "timestamp".
>

As I said -- to store date/time values, you should NOT use
the TIMESTAMP datatype, cause it isn't supposed to be
used to store custom date/time values.

I suggest you read the documentation on MySQL Date/Time
datatypes -- it has a fine explanation of what to use and what
to use the TIMESTAMP datatype for.

Don't bother going the Unix integer timestamp thingy route.

Just read this:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/date-and-time-type-overview.html


Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - development tool for MySQL, and more!
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
Database development questions? Check the forum!
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com