How to create a date stamp and insert it into database in Wordpress?

Question

I want to create a database table with a column corresponding to the time in my wordpress site, so that I can save user actions into this table and know when they did it.

Creating a table:

$sql = "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $table_name (
        id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
        actiontime NOT NULL DATETIME,
        PRIMARY KEY (id)
    ) $charset_collSate;";
    require_once( ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' );
    // execute the query
    dbDelta( $sql );

Is this correct?

I would want a time stamp such that I can get the difference on minute/second intervals.

Answer 1

Use this php function to get the current value for a MySQL DATETIME field.

/**
 * Return current date time.
 *
 * @return string ISO date time (Y-m-d H:i:s)
 */
function now()
{
    return date('Y-m-d H:i:s');
}