How to map MySQL column "timestamp" to a field with Doctrine2 - php

Question

I created a Doctrine2 Entity and would like to map a field to timestamp column in MySQL.
/**
* #ORM\Table(name="biz_order")
* #ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="Acme\OrderBundle\Repository\OrderRepository")
*/
class Order
{
/**
* #ORM\Column(name="order_id", type="integer")
* #ORM\Id
* #ORM\GeneratedValue(strategy="AUTO")
*/
private $id;
// Lots of other fields ...
/**
* #ORM\Column(name="order_timestamp", type="datetime")
*/
private $createdOn;
}
With annotated type as "datetime" I get following error:
Doctrine\DBAL\Types\ConversionException: Could not convert database value "1390362851" to Doctrine Type datetime. Expected format: Y-m-d H:i:s
at n/a
in /var/www/packer/vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Types/ConversionException.php line 63
at Doctrine\DBAL\Types\ConversionException::conversionFailedFormat('1390362851', 'datetime', 'Y-m-d H:i:s')
in /var/www/packer/vendor/doctrine/dbal/lib/Doctrine/DBAL/Types/DateTimeType.php line 67
However in Doctrine 2.4 documentation I found following
datetime: Type that maps a SQL DATETIME/TIMESTAMP to a PHP DateTime object.
How can I map timestamp DB column to a PHP class field in Doctrine2?
EDIT:
So far my workaround is using the type="integer" in ORM mapping and returning it as ValueObject
public function getCreatedOn()
{
$createdOn = new \DateTime();
$createdOn->setTimestamp($this->createdOn);
return $createdOn;
}

Answer 1

You can just create a custom doctrine type defined timestamp, see the documentation

Answer 2

You can look at This post: datetime vs timestamp
Since it is a createdAt property, and represents a point in time, you might want to fetch objects that have been created before $createdAt or after $createdAt.
To do that, your best option is to store the datetime exactly the way you've done it but to associate a \Datetime object to that field: $this->createdAt = new \Datetime();
The best way for you would be to use lifecycle callbacks:
use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
/**
* #ORM\Table(name="biz_order")
* #ORM\Entity(repositoryClass="Acme\OrderBundle\Repository\OrderRepository")
* #ORM\HasLifecycleCallbacks
*/
class Order
{
/**
* #ORM\Column(name="order_timestamp", type="datetime")
*/
private $createdAt;
/**
* #ORM\PrePersist
*/
public function doStuffOnPrePersist()
{
$this->createdAt= new \DateTime();
}
}