Laravel not retrieving milliseconds in DateTime columns - laravel

Question

In Laravel, I have some columns with milliseconds. Note that some other columns do not have milliseconds (e.g. created_at, updated_at).
Here is my migration:
Schema::create('brands', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->increments('id');
$table->dateTime('sync_date_time', 3);
$table->timestamps();
});
My model is simply:
class Brand extends Model {}
Yet when I have a record with milliseconds (e.g. 2018-12-19 01:40:46.512) , and execute:
$brand->sync_date_time;
It always returns a string without the milliseconds portion (e.g. 2018-12-19 01:40:46).
Why is this happening, and how can I fix this issue?
Note that this is not a Carbon issue, as I am not using Carbon for this field at all.
I saw a similar question here:
Laravel timestamps to show milliseconds
that claims this is in fact a PDO issue and suggest using a string or timestamp. But it's quite an old answer, so I was hoping there is a better answer.

Answer 1

This issue has nothing to do with Laravel, but due to a known bug in PDO with newer versions of MySQL.
This issue exists in PHP 7.2 and has been fixed in PHP 7.3.
So to fix this issue, just upgrade to PHP 7.3.
If you want to auto-cast to a Carbon date, I found the following does NOT work when it comes to setting, saving and toArray:
protected $casts = [
'sync_date_time' => 'datetime:Y-m-d H:i:s.v',
];
Instead I found that you must have nothing in casts for the column, and add the following methods to the model:
public function getSyncDateTimeAttribute(string $value): Carbon
{
return Carbon::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s.v', $value);
}
public function setSyncDateTimeAttribute(Carbon $value): void
{
$this->attributes['fidel_created'] = $value->format('Y-m-d H:i:s.v');
}
But remember you still need to upgrade to PHP 7.3!

Answer 2

Put this at the top of your model:
protected $dates = ['sync_date_time'];
Laravel will automatically cast this to a Carbon instance which you can then format simply with:
$brand->sync_date_time->format('Y-m-d H:i:s.u')
You can also try setting the protected $dateFormat variable at the top of your model too.

Answer 3

I had the same bug with Lumen 8.
I've change this code in my model class :
protected $casts = [
'last_activity_at' => 'datetime',
];
to
public function getLastActivityAtAttribute(?string $value): ?Carbon
{
return empty($value) ? null : Carbon::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s.v', $value);
}
public function setLastActivityAtAttribute(Carbon $value): void
{
$this->attributes['last_activity_at'] = $value->format('Y-m-d H:i:s.v');
}
Milliseconds save well now.
I tried this code too but it doesn't work :
protected $casts = [
'last_activity_at' => 'datetime:Y-m-d H:i:s.v',
];