# Datetime

> A date and time value, rendered as a native <input type="date">.

Source: CBX documentation, version 3.x (released). Canonical page: https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/property-types/datetime. Last updated 2026-07-27.

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A date and time value, rendered as a native `<input type="date">`.

**Storage kind:** `column` · **Column:** `datetime`, **nullable by default**

Use it for any real point in time: a validity window, a scheduled publication, an audit timestamp.
Do not store a date as a [`string`](https://docs.configbox.at/docs/technical/property-types/string) — a `varchar` date sorts lexically, cannot be
compared in SQL without casting, and has no canonical empty value.

## Settings

None of its own. It takes the shared settings only — `label`, `required`, `default`, `invisible`,
`appliesWhen` and the storage keys.

There is no JS date widget behind it: the field is a native browser date input, so the picker, the
locale formatting and the keyboard behaviour are the browser's. That is why there is nothing to
configure and nothing to initialise.

## Nullable by default

Alone among the types, this one returns `true` from `getDefaultNullable()`. An unset date is
genuinely absent, and the alternative — a zero date — is a sentinel every reader has to recognise
and special-case.

`prepareForStorage()` enforces it: an empty submitted value becomes SQL `NULL`, not `''` and not
`0000-00-00`. So "no date" has exactly one representation, and `IS NULL` is the way to ask.

The audit timestamps (`created_at`, `updated_at`) use it, declared `'default' => null` and
`'invisible' => true`: set programmatically, never shown on a form, and NULL until they are stamped.

If you need a date that must always be present, `'nullable' => false` plus `required` works — but be
sure there is a sensible default, because the column then has to hold something before the operator
ever sees the form.

## Notes

Those timestamps were `'type' => 'string'` on real `datetime` columns until 2026-07-27, and carried
`'visible' => false` — a key nothing reads — so they rendered on admin forms despite being declared
hidden. If you have copied that pattern, the working key is `invisible`.

The column type is `datetime`, not `timestamp`: no automatic update on write, no timezone
conversion, and no 2038 limit. Values are stored exactly as given.

@see ../com_configbox_property_definition_settings.md §3