DECIMAL length for microtime(true)?

Question

I want to store PHP\'s microtime as my timestamp in MySQL.

I\'ve been told it\'s best to store it in DECIMAL, but I can\'t find an ideal size.

Does

Answer 1

In MySQL 5.6.4 and above, the native DATETIME and TIMESTAMP types can support fractional seconds. Thus, you can store a timestamp with microsecond resolution in a DATETIME(6) or a TIMESTAMP(6) column.

To convert PHP microtime() return values to MySQL datetime format, you can use the MySQL FROM_UNIXTIME() function or, if you're using the PHP DateTime class, DateTime::format(). Note that the PHP date() function does not currently support microsecond timestamps. (It does have a format code for microseconds, u, but it always maps it to 000000.)

For older MySQL versions, which cannot store microseconds in their native datetime types, you should use either DOUBLE, BIGINT (with the values expressed in microseconds, i.e. multiplied by 1,000,000) or DECIMAL(16,6) (which should be enough for a few hundred years yet).