new Model fills updated_at - lumen

Question

I am using Lumen and I just found an issue. When creating a new model, the code also fills 'updated_at' despite the model is new and it wasn't updated yet (since it was just created). Since this is a crucial flaw and would be strange that it wasn't noticed till now, I presume I am doing something wrong.
App\User.php:
<?php
namespace App;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class User extends Model
{
const CREATED_AT = 'date_created';
const UPDATED_AT = 'date_updated';
protected $fillable = [
'name',
'email',
'role_id',
'password'
];
protected $hidden = [
'token',
'password',
'date_password_reset',
'token_password_reset'
];
protected $casts = [
'date_created' => 'datetime:Uv',
'date_updated' => 'datetime:Uv',
'date_password_reset' => 'datetime:Uv'
];
protected $with = ['userRoles'];
protected $validationRules = [...];
}
App\Http\Controllers\UsersController.php:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\JsonResponse;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
use App\User;
use Illuminate\Validation\ValidationException;
use Exception;
class UsersController extends Controller
{
public function __construct()
{
$this->middleware('auth');
}
...
// first attempt
public function create(Request $request) {
$this->validate($request, (new User)->rules('create'));
$user = new User;
$user->name = $request->input('name');
$user->email = $request->input('email');
$user->password = Hash::make($request->input('password'));
$user->role_id = $request->input('role_id');
$user->active = $request->boolean('active');
$user->save();
return response()->json(
[
'success' => true,
'message' => 'User successfully created',
'data' => User::query()->find($user->id)
], 200);
}
// second attempt
public function create(Request $request) {
$this->validate($request, (new User)->rules('create'));
$user = new User;
$user->update($request->input());
$user->password = Hash::make($request->input('password'));
$user->active = $request->boolean('active');
$user->save();
return response()->json(
[
'success' => true,
'message' => 'User successfully created',
'data' => User::query()->find($user->id)
], 200);
}
// third attempt
public function create(Request $request) {
$this->validate($request, (new User)->rules('create'));
$user = new User($request->input());
$user->password = Hash::make($request->input('password'));
$user->active = $request->boolean('active');
$user->save();
return response()->json(
[
'success' => true,
'message' => 'User successfully created',
'data' => User::query()->find($user->id)
], 200);
}
}
DB migration:
<?php
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\DB;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Hash;
class CreateUsersTable extends Migration
{
protected $initialUsers = [
[
'name' => 'Administrator',
'email' => 'admin#localhost.local',
'password' => null,
'role_id' => null,
'active' => 1
]
];
protected $initialRoles = [
[
'name' => 'Administrator'
],
[
'name' => 'User'
]
];
protected $initialUserRoles = [];
public function up()
{
DB::beginTransaction();;
Schema::create('users_roles', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->id();
$table->string('name', 50);
$table->timestamp('date_created')->useCurrent();
$table->timestamp('date_updated')->nullable()->default(DB::raw('NULL ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP'));
});
foreach ($this->initialRoles as $data) {
DB::table('user_roles')->insert($data);
}
Schema::create('users', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->id();
$table->string('name', 100);
$table->string('email', 255)->unique();
$table->string('password');
$table->unsignedBigInteger('role_id')->nullable();
$table->string('token', 255)->nullable();
$table->tinyInteger('active');
$table->timestamp('date_password_reset')->nullable();
$table->string('token_password_reset')->nullable();
$table->timestamp('date_created')->useCurrent();
$table->timestamp('date_updated')->nullable()->default(DB::raw('NULL ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP'));
$table->foreign('role_id')->references('id')->on('users_roles')->onDelete('set null')->onUpdate('cascade');
});
$password = Hash::make('xxx#x');
$role_id = DB::table('users_roles')->where('name', 'Administrator')->value('id');
foreach ($this->initialUsers as $data) {
$data['password'] = $password;
$data['role_id'] = $role_id;
$user_id = DB::table('users')->insertGetId($data);
$this->initialUserRoles[] = [
'user_id' => $user_id,
'role_id' => $role_id
];
}
DB::commit();
}
}
Query created by Eloquent:
array (size=3)
'query' => string 'insert into `users` (`name`, `email`, `password`, `role_id`, `active`, `date_updated`, `date_created`) values (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)' (length=131)
'bindings' =>
array (size=7)
0 => string 'Test User 5' (length=11)
1 => string 'test6#test.net' (length=14)
2 => string '$2y$10$lvRGKuznotd8lqwCj2diIONGjyiAkhaNthWGjQyFWbBqiyuf20wpG' (length=60)
3 => string '1' (length=1)
4 => boolean true
5 => string '2020-06-17 10:30:07' (length=19)
6 => string '2020-06-17 10:30:07' (length=19)
'time' => float 5.5
All three create() attempts are filling up 'updated_at' despite that one should stay NULL until an actual update is done on this model. Can you guys give me any indication what am I doing wrong? Would also like to keep the $model->update($request->input()) functionality if possible, so that I do not need too assign each field manually.

Answer 1

Because Lumen/Laravel is handling the "created_at" and "updated_at" fields on it's own and it sets both to the same timestamp when a record is created (which I do not like), I created my own solution.
First is already in place when creating a migration. I created my own timestamp fields and those are already properly updated by MySQL:
$table->timestamp('date_created')->useCurrent();
$table->timestamp('date_updated')->nullable()->default(DB::raw('NULL ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP'));
And of course, disable timestamp handling for Lumen in User.php model:
public $timestamps = false;
But in case that this is not possible for any reason or if you want Lumen/Laravel to handle those, this is the code I wrote in User.php model:
const CREATED_AT = 'date_created';
const UPDATED_AT = 'date_updated';
public $timestamps = false;
public static function boot() {
parent::boot();
static::creating(function ($model) {
$model->{self::CREATED_AT} = $model->freshTimestamp();
});
static::updating(function ($model) {
$model->{self::UPDATED_AT} = $model->freshTimestamp();
});
}