MySQL is converting my timestamp values to 0000-00-00

Question

I'm new to PHP and am currently still learning. I'm having issues with my registration form I think. username, password, email all insert into MySQL successfully. registered and last_seen do not.

I thought I was using getTimestamp() wrong, but it echos what I need. However when I try to insert both timestamp fields into MySql, I see 0000-00-00 00:00:00 in those fields instead of what it echoed before the sql query. What am I doing wrong here? Any help is much appreciated.

    $date = new DateTime();
    $time = $date->getTimestamp();

    echo '<div class="box_grey">' . $time . '</div>';

    $sql = '    INSERT INTO users (username, password, email, registered, last_seen) 
                VALUES (:username, :password, :email, :registered, :last_seen)';
    $stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql);
    $stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
    $stmt->bindParam(':password', $password);
    $stmt->bindParam(':email', $email);
    $stmt->bindParam(':registered', $time);
    $stmt->bindParam(':last_seen', $time);
    $stmt->execute();

    print '<div class="box_grey">errorCode() ' . $stmt->errorCode() . '<br /><br />';
    print_r($stmt->errorInfo());

    echo '</div>';

    echo '<div class="box_grey">Registered successfully!</div>';

Here's what SHOW CREATE TABLE users; shows me.

CREATE TABLE `users` (
    `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT COMMENT 'User''s unique ID number',  
    `username` varchar(16) NOT NULL,  
    `password` varchar(100) NOT NULL,  
    `email` varchar(254) NOT NULL,  
    `registered` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00',  
    `last_seen` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00',  
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)) 
ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=9 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

Answer 1

That occurs pretty often.
You're confusing mysql timestamp which is actually a DATETIME like value with UNIX timestamp, which is number of seconds passed since 1970-01-01.

You need to either change field format or the inserting value.
Also you can find some mysql functions handy - CURDATE() or NOW () for example

$sql = 'INSERT INTO users VALUES (NULL,:username,:password,:email,NOW(),NOW())';
$stmt = $pdo->prepare($sql);
$stmt->execute(array($username, $password, $email));

But personally I'd avoid mysql timestamps. they can be changed unexpectedly, ruining all your data. I'd use DATETIME and set all values manually.