Changing Data Type Of Database Columns (?)

Developers Dev talks
1

I'd post this in the developer section of the portal but I do not have the permission to open a topic in there yet :)

I'm working on some code for data collection that is run on my server, communicating directly with the database. The timestamp column in the cscart_products table is by default set up as an INT(11) data type. Currently, the default value is 0 and I was not able to change it to CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, as that value requires a timestamp data type.

With everything backed up, I put on my trial-and-error boots and changed the data type from INT(11) to timestamp and then made the default CURRENT_TIMESTAMP. Lo and behold, everything seems to work in order. Features such as sorting by date etc work in order.

Before I do further coding around this I just wanted to ask other devs with more cs-cart experience whether or not this will break when updating the firmware. Could there be any other complications? Do you know of any other features I could test for compatibility other than product sorting?

Many thanks :)

- LyyK

2

No way of really knowing. It will be a risk due to upgrade process/methods are pretty much a crap-shoot. No way to know if they will copy the table, create a new schema and then import the old table. This would cause your changes to be lost.

Timestamp SHOULD be set when the product is created in the DB. So my bet is that it is your direct manipulation of the database (importing directly) that is causing timestamp to be zero. The API, import and admin UI all will set timestamp correctly.

So my bet is that you are correcting for something you're causing. Just a hunch.