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10.3.4 Year 2000 Issues and Date Types »
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10.3.3. The YEAR Type

The YEAR type is a one-byte type used for representing years. It can be declared as YEAR(2) or YEAR(4) to specify a display width of two or four characters. The default is four characters if no width is given.

For four-digit format, MySQL displays YEAR values in YYYY format, with a range of 1901 to 2155, or 0000. For two-digit format, MySQL displays only the last two (least significant) digits; for example, 70 (1970 or 2070) or 69 (2069).

You can specify input YEAR values in a variety of formats:

  • As a four-digit string in the range '1901' to '2155'.

  • As a four-digit number in the range 1901 to 2155.

  • As a two-digit string in the range '00' to '99'. Values in the ranges '00' to '69' and '70' to '99' are converted to YEAR values in the ranges 2000 to 2069 and 1970 to 1999.

  • As a two-digit number in the range 1 to 99. Values in the ranges 1 to 69 and 70 to 99 are converted to YEAR values in the ranges 2001 to 2069 and 1970 to 1999. Note that the range for two-digit numbers is slightly different from the range for two-digit strings, because you cannot specify zero directly as a number and have it be interpreted as 2000. You must specify it as a string '0' or '00' or it is interpreted as 0000.

  • As the result of a function that returns a value that is acceptable in a YEAR context, such as NOW().

Illegal YEAR values are converted to 0000.