title: Using something like NOW() in a Codeigniter insert array
body: <p>Because NOW() is a MySQL method I cannot seem to get it to work in the below array. What is a function I can use in PHP which will do the same thing as the NOW() method.</p>
  
  <pre><code>$data = array('node1id' =&gt; $leader_id,
                'node2id' =&gt; $idgen,
                'friendsSince' =&gt; NOW(),
  $this-&gt;db-&gt;insert('users', $data);
  </code></pre>