Getting the order object in the observer issue

Question

This is the event that I used: sales_order_save_before and this is my function:

  public function test(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
    {
        $order = $observer->getEvent()->getOrder;
        var_dump($order->getData('created_at'));  // this is null 
        var_dump($order->getIncrementId());  // this is good, i got a value 
        var_dump($observer->getEvent()->getData('created_at')); // this is  null
        exit();
    }

When I press the place order button an ajax request is made: /checkout/onepage/saveOrder/form_key/eKIOUrQBzrvNCYdY/

If I do a var dump of order->getData(), it simply takes too long to display the result in the firebug . I waited more then 5 minutes so I stopped.

My question is how do i get the created_at value from the order ?

Thx

Answer 1

You are using this on sales_order_save_before. at this time order is not yet saved but before that the Increment Id was generated thats why you are getting that

If you use sales_order_save_after event then you will get all the data of order. And if you want to use this at the time of place order then you have to use sales_order_place_after event.

Answer 2

You can get order create date like this.

echo $order->getCreatedAtDate();

Answer 3

Magento, set sales order, invoice, shipment, credit memo created_at after before_save and before after_save event.

Basically, all sales related object order, shipment, credit memo, invoice created_at field value set whenever it prepareDataForSave() Prepare data for save at database.

If you see that Magento sales object's resource Db Abstract class Mage_Sales_Model_Resource_Abstract, then you can understand that.

We already now that prepareDataForSave() fire when after before_save and before after_save event. You can get a clear view at resource db abstract class Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Db_Abstract at function save(),

 public function save(Mage_Core_Model_Abstract $object)
    {
    .....   

        $this->_beforeSave($object);
        $this->_checkUnique($object);
        if (!is_null($object->getId()) && (!$this->_useIsObjectNew || !$object->isObjectNew())) {
            $condition = $this->_getWriteAdapter()->quoteInto($this->getIdFieldName().'=?', $object->getId());
            /**
             * Not auto increment primary key support
             */
            if ($this->_isPkAutoIncrement) {

                $data = $this->_prepareDataForSave($object);
                unset($data[$this->getIdFieldName()]);
                $this->_getWriteAdapter()->update($this->getMainTable(), $data, $condition);
            } else {
                $select = $this->_getWriteAdapter()->select()
                    ->from($this->getMainTable(), array($this->getIdFieldName()))
                    ->where($condition);
                if ($this->_getWriteAdapter()->fetchOne($select) !== false) {

                    $data = $this->_prepareDataForSave($object);

                    unset($data[$this->getIdFieldName()]);
                    if (!empty($data)) {
                        $this->_getWriteAdapter()->update($this->getMainTable(), $data, $condition);
                    }
                } else {
                    $this->_getWriteAdapter()->insert($this->getMainTable(), $this->_prepareDataForSave($object));
                }
            }
        } else {
            $bind = $this->_prepareDataForSave($object);
            if ($this->_isPkAutoIncrement) {
                unset($bind[$this->getIdFieldName()]);
            }
            $this->_getWriteAdapter()->insert($this->getMainTable(), $bind);

            $object->setId($this->_getWriteAdapter()->lastInsertId($this->getMainTable()));

            if ($this->_useIsObjectNew) {
                $object->isObjectNew(false);
            }
        }

    ......
        $this->_afterSave($object);

        return $this;
    }