Would you recommend using a datetime or a timestamp field, and why (using MySQL)?
I'm working with PHP on the server side.
The DATETIME type is used for values that contain both date and time parts. MySQL retrieves and displays DATETIME values in ' YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss ' format. The supported range is '1000-01-01 00:00:00' to '9999-12-31 23:59:59' . The TIMESTAMP data type is used for values that contain both date and time parts.
TIMESTAMP is four bytes vs eight bytes for DATETIME . Timestamps are also lighter on the database and indexed faster. The DATETIME type is used when you need values that contain both date and time information. MySQL retrieves and displays DATETIME values in YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS format.
Just as DATETIME , the TIMESTAMP data type contains both the date and the time in the following format YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss . However, unlike DATETIME , the TIMESTAMP data type has a fixed range between 1970-01-01 00:00:01 UTC to 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC.
Range − Datetime data type supports a date along with time in the range between 1000-01-01 00:00:00 and 9999-12-31 23:59:59. But timestamp data type supports a date along with time in the range between '1970-01-01 00:00:01' to '2038-01-19 08:44:07'.
Timestamps in MySQL are generally used to track changes to records, and are often updated every time the record is changed. If you want to store a specific value you should use a datetime field.
If you meant that you want to decide between using a UNIX timestamp or a native MySQL datetime field, go with the native format. You can do calculations within MySQL that way ("SELECT DATE_ADD(my_datetime, INTERVAL 1 DAY)")
and it is simple to change the format of the value to a UNIX timestamp ("SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(my_datetime)")
when you query the record if you want to operate on it with PHP.
In MySQL 5 and above, TIMESTAMP values are converted from the current time zone to UTC for storage, and converted back from UTC to the current time zone for retrieval. (This occurs only for the TIMESTAMP data type, and not for other types such as DATETIME.)
By default, the current time zone for each connection is the server's time. The time zone can be set on a per-connection basis, as described in MySQL Server Time Zone Support.
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