Articles → DJANGO → Auto_Now And Auto_Now_Add In Django

Auto_Now And Auto_Now_Add In Django

In this article, we will discuss about auto_now and auto_now_add in Django.

Purpose

auto_now is used to set the field value with current date and time value when data is saved.

auto_now_add is used to set the field value with current date and time value when data is created.

Here is the table to describe

Attribute	Value	Impact
auto_now	True	Automatically updates the field with current date and time when data is saved.
auto_now	False	Date and time control is displayed on the page.
auto_now_add	True	Automatically updates the field with current date and time when data is created.
auto_now_add	False	Date and time control is displayed on the page.

Please note that you cannot use auto_now and auto_now_add in a single field.

Example

Consider the following model

from django.db import models

# Create your models here.
class MyNewScreen(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length = 120)
    created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True, null = True)

In the above model, we have a field "created" with value auto_add_now to True. It means when the record gets created, current datetime stamp is added in created field of the database.

Picture showing the new screen for adding a new record

Click to Enlarge

Once user clicks on "SAVE" button, following data goes into database

Picture showing the record added in the database

Click to Enlarge

As we are using auto_now_add, so "created" field will not be updated if the record is updated.

Now if we set the value to False, a date and time picker will appear

Picture showing the new screen with the date time field

Click to Enlarge

Posted By -	Karan Gupta

Posted On -	Wednesday, January 8, 2020

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