Org-Mode : adding creation date property upon heading creation

Question

When creating a new section in an Org-Mode document I want to automatically add a :CREATED: date property, by example:

* Test
:PROPERTIES:
:CREATED:: 2022-06-13 11:05:59
:END:

I wrote a solution (see answer) however I am not 100% sure it has no side effect. Maybe a better solution exists ?

Answer 1

I came up with this solution :

(add-hook 'org-insert-heading-hook
(lambda()
(save-excursion
          (org-back-to-heading)
          (org-set-property "CREATED:" (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d %T")))))

---

UPDATE:

I read what-you-need-to-know-about-hooks :

It’s important to mention that you shouldn’t use anonymous functions for your hooks because it becomes hard to tell the purpose of a lambda when you inspect the hook at some later point. Another benefit of using named functions is that you can easily remove them by passing their name to remove-hook.

By consequence, I updated my solution as follows :

(defun set-creation-date-heading-property ()
  (save-excursion
    (org-back-to-heading)
    (org-set-property "CREATED:" (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d %T"))))

(defun my-org-mode-date-heading-on ()
  "Turn on heading creation date property"
  (interactive)
  (add-hook 'org-insert-heading-hook #'set-creation-date-heading-property))

(defun my-org-mode-date-heading-off ()
  "Turn off heading creation date property"
  (interactive)
  (remove-hook 'org-insert-heading-hook #'set-creation-date-heading-property))

You can use the two functions my-org-mode-date-heading-on and my-org-mode-date-heading-off to turn on/off automatic creation of the "CREATED" property.