What is the method to submit a current timestamp directly on an insert or an update. If I were running regular sql, I would use the function NOW() for the specific sql field on submission. How would I do that with cakephp.
$this->Model->save($this->data)
You can set timestamp field to auto initialize and auto update
timestampfield TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
In CakePHP, you can include the NOW() function unescaped by using DboSource::expression
$this->data['SomeModel']['your_datetime_field'] = DboSource::expression('NOW()');
$this->Model->save($this->data);
This is the preferred way of including MySQL functions in your saves.
http://api.cakephp.org/class/dbo-source#method-DboSourceexpression
if you add the created and modified columns in you table they will be automatically populated with current time stamp. If the case is different - i.e. you want to populate a field which later on you want to modify, probably using the edorian's solution is best.