How to implement laravel custom carbon timestamp?

Question

I want to have a future timestamp for 'contests' that expire in my table. I can input the time without any problem except when I retrieve the input it doesn't seem to return me a carbon instance but merely a string with the time? ``` public function store(ContestRequest $request) { $input = Request::all(); // Set the 'owner' attribute to the name of the currently logged in user(obviously requires login) $input['owner'] = Auth::user()->name; // Set the enddate according to the weeks that the user selected with the input select $weeks = Request::input('ends_at'); // Add the weeks to the current time to set the future expiration date $input['ends_at'] = Carbon::now()->addWeeks($weeks); Contest::create($input); return redirect('contests'); } ``` This is what I am using to create a new contest, the timeformat is exactly the same in the table as the created_at and updated_at fields. They seem to return a Carbon instance when I try something like: ``` $contest->created_at->diffForHumans() ``…

Accepted Answer

All you have to do is add it to the `$dates` property in your model.

```
class Contest extends Model {
    protected $dates = ['ends_at'];
}
```

This tells Laravel to treat your `ends_at` attribute the same as it handles `updated_at` and `created_at`

@Jakobud You don't have to worry about overriding `created_at` and `updated_at`. They will be merged with the `$dates` array:

```
public function getDates()
{
    $defaults = array(static::CREATED_AT, static::UPDATED_AT);
    return array_merge($this->dates, $defaults);
}
```

`static::CREATED_AT` resolves to `'created_at'` and `static::UPDATED_AT` to `'updated_at'`

How to implement laravel custom carbon timestamp?

Solution

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