Persistence Tracking Columns are UTC

CodeFluent Entities automatically generates tracking columns. Those columns contains:

• Creation time
• Creation user
• Last write time
• Last writer user

By default creation time and last write time use GETDATE function (local date of the server). We think it’s a better practice to use UTC date for this kind of data. Two years ago, we wrote an aspect to replace GETDATE function by GETUTCDATE function: http://www.softfluent.com/forums/codefluent-entities/utc-date-times.

In the latest build of CodeFluent Entities (build 772) we introduce a new built-in setting at Project Level to use UTC date instead of local date:

This option is used by all persistence producers: Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Azure, Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL.

For example with SQL Server:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Test] (
  [Test_Id] [uniqueidentifier] NOT NULL,
  [_trackLastWriteTime] [datetime] NOT NULL CONSTRAINT [DF_Tes__tc] 
DEFAULT (GETUTCDATE()), -- instead of getdate()
  [_trackCreationTime] [datetime] NOT NULL CONSTRAINT [DF_Tes__tk] 
DEFAULT (GETUTCDATE()), -- instead of getdate()
  [_trackLastWriteUser] [nvarchar] (64) NOT NULL,
  [_trackCreationUser] [nvarchar] (64) NOT NULL,
  [_rowVersion] [rowversion] NOT NULL
)

Happy tracking,

The R&D Team