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Version: 0.27.1

Create/Update tracking

You can add per-table support for create/update tracking. When you do this, the Model will have information about when it was created, and when it was last updated.

⚠️ Note: WatermelonDB automatically sets and persists the created_at/updated_at fields if they are present as millisecond epoch's. If you intend to interact with these properties in any way you should always treat them as such.

When to use this​

Use create tracking:

  • When you display to the user when a thing (e.g. a Post, Comment, Task) was created
  • If you sort created items chronologically (Note that Record IDs are random strings, not auto-incrementing integers, so you need create tracking to sort chronologically)

Use update tracking:

  • When you display to the user when a thing (e.g. a Post) was modified

Notes:

  • you don't have to enable both create and update tracking. You can do either, both, or none.
  • In your model, these fields need to be called createdAt and updatedAt respectively.

How to do this​

Step 1: Add to the schema:

tableSchema({
  name: 'posts',
  columns: [
    // other columns
    { name: 'created_at', type: 'number' },
    { name: 'updated_at', type: 'number' },
  ]
}),

Step 2: Add this to the Model definition:

import { date, readonly } from '@nozbe/watermelondb/decorators'

class Post extends Model {
  // ...
  @readonly @date('created_at') createdAt
  @readonly @date('updated_at') updatedAt
}

Again, you can add just created_at column and field if you don't need update tracking.

How this behaves​

If you have the magic createdAt field defined on the Model, the current timestamp will be set when you first call collection.create() or collection.prepareCreate(). It will never be modified again.

If the magic updatedAt field is also defined, then after creation, model.updatedAt will have the same value as model.createdAt. Then every time you call model.update() or model.prepareUpdate(), updatedAt will be changed to the current timestamp.