django does django have an automatic timestamp create/update field like cakephp?

Question

having used cakephp in the past, one thing (perhaps the only thing?) i liked about it was that it had a "create" and "update" timestamp capability that was lovely - simply put, when you first added an item, the "create" date was set (assuming you named it right - create_date, i think)

Anytime thereafter, if an update was performed, the "update" field was set to the current time.

Does django have this as well? If so, what/how do i name the fields to get it to pick them up?

Possible duplicate of [In django do models have a default timestamp field?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8016412/in-django-do-models-have-a-default-timestamp-field) — Hardik Sondagar, Sep 07 '16 at 10:37

score 32 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 15 '16 at 12:06

It is not added to your model built-in in every table. You must add it as field to your model.

class Message(models.Model):

    created_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
    updated_at = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)

Message in this case your table's name.

score 23 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 11 '12 at 11:58

23

Sure it has!

Check auto_now and auto_now_add in the doc

answered Jun 11 '12 at 11:58

okm

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From the [source](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/_modules/django/db/models/fields/#DateTimeField), it looks like they're mutually exclusive. But could you help to explain the difference? It isn't very clear what is the difference between `auto_now` and `auto_now_add`. – alvas Jun 09 '16 at 03:48
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Maybe [this](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/models/fields/#django.db.models.DateField.auto_now) clear up more. `auto_now` is generated on each edit, `auto_now_add` only generated on creation. – bizi Sep 08 '16 at 22:40

django does django have an automatic timestamp create/update field like cakephp?

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