# How to write your own created\_at/updated\_at?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-write-your-own-created-at-updated-at/191824>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 19, 2010, 12:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-write-your-own-created-at-updated-at/191824 "2010-07-19T12:45:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Vladimir\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/4491bb/32.png) [@Vladimir\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Vladimir_R)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 12:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-write-your-own-created-at-updated-at/191824/1 "2010-07-19T12:45:32Z")

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I’m using Pfeed([GitHub - parolkar/pfeed: A rails plugin that allows you to create extensible log of activity](http://github.com/parolkar/pfeed)) plugin for User  
Activity Feeds.  
It creates PfeedItem model records and uses created\_at field for a lot  
of stuff inside.

Now I need to export/import those user logs. I do exporting to YAML.  
When I reconstruct PfeedItem AR object from YAML, it have real(old)  
creation time in created\_at attribute. When I save this PfeedItem -  
there is new created\_at with current time written to database.

How do I force created\_at to be not automatically generated, but  
contain my old created\_at timestamp from YAML?

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**Author:** ![Vladimir\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/4491bb/32.png) [@Vladimir\_R](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Vladimir_R)\
**Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-write-your-own-created-at-updated-at/191824/2 "2010-07-19T15:07:49Z")

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On Jul 19, 11:44 am, Vladimir R. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> How do I force created\_at to be not automatically generated, but  
> contain my old created\_at timestamp from YAML?

Active Record shouldn’t overwrite created\_at if you set it yourself

Fred