JPA - How can I use the table's default Date types? e.g. CURRENT_TIME

Question

Once again, can't find an answer anwhere.
I would like to know if/how one can use the default date/time/datetime types as declared for the target table when attempting to persist an entity having these fields set as null.
create table item
     item_id INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT AUTOINCREMENT,
     date_created DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW(*),
     date_updated DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW(*),
);Now how can I get the above table to work when attempting to em.persist(myItem) whereby dateCreated and dateUpdated are both null?

Answer 1

I should also mention that TopLink has always supported the ability to retrieve the current time from the database for use in optimistic locking. The TimestampLockingPolicy offers the ability to configure the next value being retrieved from the database instead of using the local time from the JVM. Our extended optimistic locking configuration does not currently support setting this option but it could be done using a descriptor customizer which can be configured in your persistence unit properties.
Using optimistic locking may be a good solution for the last modified date since it will also ensure that you do not corrupt the database if someone else has incremented this value since your last read.
Doug