considering that sqlite, mysql, postgresql, etc all handle times differently (well only postgresql really *handles* them) i''m wondering how to best approach time fields in rails. my current thinking is that sqlite is the least common denominator: it stores everything as text and does not checking, mysql has datetime, date, and timestamp but does poor checking (crippled to be precise) to ensure the column is valid. only postgresql supports both timestamps AND will ensure the field value is a possible date/time. enter rails and it''s mapping to *_at fields. i''m thinking that seting up a table like create table temporal ( id int, data text, created_at text, updated_at text primary key (id) ); should do the trick since rails will pull out the strings and convert them to times and also update them at the right times. however, there doesn''t seem to be a validation done automatically on the input values? hopefully i''m missing that, but i was hoping to see something like require ''time'' valid begin t = Time::parse field true rescue false end somewhere in the source (which is pretty big so i may not have found it). can anyone tell me if this happens or not? it''s a bit tricky to test for three dbs at once... also, should storing timestamps as text work if the fieldnames are *_at but the type is text? cheers. -a -- ==============================================================================| EMAIL :: Ara [dot] T [dot] Howard [at] noaa [dot] gov | PHONE :: 303.497.6469 | When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good | bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself. --Shunryu Suzuki ===============================================================================