# Data migration of date constant **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [January 9, 2007, 6:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migration-of-date-constant/81530 "2007-01-09T18:45:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 6:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migration-of-date-constant/81530/1 "2007-01-09T18:45:49Z")
A simple question: what is the correct way to input a fixed string as a datetime field within a rails data migration? I tried this: … :record\_effective\_from =\> ‘20020731000000’, … And got this: # == AddEntityTestData: migrating rake aborted! RuntimeError: ERROR C42804 Mcolumn “record\_effective\_from” is of type timestamp without time zone but expression is of type bigint HYou will need to rewrite or cast the expression. Soooo… how do I rewrite or recast this to work? Regards, ---
**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 8:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migration-of-date-constant/81530/2 "2007-01-09T20:38:33Z")
James B. wrote: > Soooo… how do I rewrite or recast this to work? > > Regards, Enclose the date in single or double quotes. Ok, I got that to work. Next question. I have to load historical data and some of the dates are pre-1900. How do I get rails / ruby / postgresql to handle this. As of now when I do this: … :record\_effective\_from =\> ‘\<%= DateTime.parse(“18920801000000”) %\>’, … or this: … :record\_effective\_from =\> ‘18920801000000’, … both yield this on the database: 1901-12-13 15:45:52 The OS is CentOS-4.4 with ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i386-linux] and rails (1.1.6.5848) (1.2RC1) ---
**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 9:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migration-of-date-constant/81530/3 "2007-01-09T21:06:08Z")
James B. wrote: > The OS is CentOS-4.4 with ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i386-linux] and rails > (1.1.6.5848) (1.2RC1) and postgres-pr (0.4.0) I have another problem with data migrations. I have added two fields to the subject table that are called “changed\_on” and “created-on” repectively. These are supposed to default to the current time according to my understanding of the Rails conventions and therefore I have not named them in the data migration. However, when I run rake db:migrate I get this: # \*\* Invoke db:migrate (first\_time) \*\* Invoke environment (first\_time) \*\* Execute environment \*\* Execute db:migrate == CreateEntities: migrating – create\_table(:entities) rake aborted! RuntimeError: ERROR C0A000 Mdate/time value “current” is no longer supported Fdatetime.c L1369 RDecodeDateTime: CREATE TABLE entities (“id” serial primary key, “entity\_ident” bigint NOT NULL, “entity\_name” character varying(40) NOT NULL, “entity\_legal\_style” character varying(255) NOT NULL, “entity\_type” character varying(4) NOT NULL, “effective\_from” timestamp NOT NULL, “superceded\_after” timestamp, “created\_by” character varying(255) NOT NULL, “created\_on” timestamp DEFAULT ‘CURRENT\_TIMESTAMP’, “changed\_by” character varying(255) NOT NULL, “changed\_on” timestamp DEFAULT ‘CURRENT\_TIMESTAMP’) /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract\_adapter.rb:128:in `log' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/postgresql_adapter.rb:152:in`execute’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/schema\_statements.rb:104:in `create_table' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active_record/migration.rb:275:in`method\_missing’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active\_record/migration.rb:259:in `say_with_time' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/benchmark.rb:293:in`measure’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active\_record/migration.rb:259:in `say_with_time' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active_record/migration.rb:273:in`method\_missing’ ./db/migrate//001\_create\_entities.rb:3:in `real_up' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active_record/migration.rb:212:in`migrate’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/benchmark.rb:293:in `measure' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active_record/migration.rb:212:in`migrate’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active\_record/migration.rb:335:in `migrate' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active_record/migration.rb:330:in`migrate’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active\_record/migration.rb:297:in `up' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.14.4.5848/lib/active_record/migration.rb:288:in`migrate’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.1.6.5848/lib/tasks/databases.rake:4 /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.1/lib/rake.rb:387:in `execute' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.1/lib/rake.rb:387:in`execute’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.1/lib/rake.rb:357:in `invoke' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/thread.rb:135:in`synchronize’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.1/lib/rake.rb:350:in `invoke' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.1/lib/rake.rb:1906:in`run’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.1/lib/rake.rb:1906:in `run’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.7.1/bin/rake:7 /usr/bin/rake:18 Does this mean that the adapter I am using is broken or is something else amiss? Regards, ---
**Author:** ![byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/d2c977/32.png) [@byrnejb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/byrnejb)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2007, 9:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/data-migration-of-date-constant/81530/4 "2007-01-09T21:55:14Z")
Further to my last post, I replace postgres-pr with ruby-postgres and tried again. the error now says: rake aborted! PGError: ERROR: date/time value “current” is no longer supported : CREATE TABLE entities (“id” serial primary key, “entity\_ident” bigint NOT NULL, “entity\_name” character varying(40) NOT NULL, “entity\_legal\_style” character varying(255) NOT NULL, “entity\_type” character varying(4) NOT NULL, “effective\_from” timestamp NOT NULL, “superceded\_after” timestamp, “created\_by” character varying(255) NOT NULL, “created\_on” timestamp DEFAULT ‘CURRENT\_TIMESTAMP’, “changed\_by” character varying(255) NOT NULL, “changed\_on” timestamp DEFAULT ‘CURRENT\_TIMESTAMP’) This looks to me like it is a PostgreSQL issue but what is providing Postgres with the date/time value of “current” (which was depreciated as of PostgreSQl 7.2)