Renaming the created_at, updated_at columns of ActiveRecord/Rails

Question

I want to rename the timestamp columns defined in timestamp.rb . Can the methods of timestamp.rb be overwritten? And what has to be done in the application that the module w

Answer 1

A sol'n which does not use a monkey patch; use the reversible block during your migration:

class CreateTest < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def change

    create_table :test do |t|
    end

    # set the timestamp columns default to now()
    reversible do |dir|
      dir.up do
        tables = [
          :test
        ]
        tables.each do |t|
          execute <<-SQL
            ALTER TABLE #{t.to_s}
              add column created timestamp without time zone default now();
          SQL
          execute <<-SQL
            ALTER TABLE #{t.to_s}
              add column updated timestamp without time zone default now();
          SQL
        end
      end
      dir.down do
        # no need to do anything, the rollback will drop the tables
      end
    end

  end
end