Symfony2 datetime best way to store timestamps?

Question

I don't know which is the best way to store a timestamp in the database. I want to store the entire date with hours minutes and seconds but it only stores the date ( for instance 2012-07-14 ) and i want to store 2012-07-14 HH:MM:SS. I am using the dateTime object. Here is the code:

In the controller:

$user->setCreated(new \DateTime());

In the entity:

/**
 * @var date $created
 *
 * @ORM\Column(name="created", type="date")
 */
private $created;

Is it better to store the date and the the time separately in the database ? or better to store all together like YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS ? I will have then to compare dates and calculate the remaining times, so that is important in order to simplify the operations later. So what do you think ? can somebody help me?

Symfony2 datetime best way to store timestamps?

4 Answers