How can you make a created_at column generate the creation date-time automatically like an ID automatically gets created?

Question

I currently have an Entity as below:

@Entity
public class Product {
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.AUTO)
    private Long productId;
          


        

Answer 1

Extend the following abstract class in your entity:

@MappedSuperclass
@EntityListeners(AuditingEntityListener.class)
public abstract class DateAudit implements Serializable {
    @CreatedDate
    @Column(name = "created_at", nullable = false, updatable = false)
    private Date createdAt;

    @LastModifiedDate
    @Column(name = "updated_at")
    private LocalDateTime updatedAt;
}

Don't forget to enable JPA Auditing feature using @EnableJpaAuditing

Read this: https://docs.spring.io/spring-data/jpa/docs/1.7.0.DATAJPA-580-SNAPSHOT/reference/html/auditing.html