Hi,

(how) can i create a column with a format like "YYYY-MM"?

CHAR(7)

what do you need it for? there might be another way to get what you want

Hi,

i want to store values, which are related to a month in a year. The exact day is not interesting. My first idee was to use the date format as providesd by mysql (YYYY-MM-DD), an fill the DD part with a dummy value. But if someone else will mantain this later, surely the question will come "why did you use always a dummy for DD". Therefore i dont want to store data which has no sense.

well, as a matter of fact, you can store values in a DATE column using 00 as the day!!

it's certainly not standard, but mysql lets you do it, check the manual for examples

otherwise, i would use two columns, a SMALLINT for the year and a TINYINT for the month

hi,

that's both not the solution i hoped for, but if ther's no other i think i'll choose the one with two columns

Thanx

roli

what were you hoping for?

and what's so wrong with a DATE column with values '1998-12-00'?

I thought there would be a way to define a column with a format like "YYYY-MM"

I dont want to store datn which has no information (-00). If there's no direct way provided by the DB, i'll have to find on by myself (or with your help: two clumns).
Further or later someone (or me) will think "what the hell does -00 meen?"

well, you could always just show them the page in the manual where -00 is explained

You're right, but this solution just work's as long as my DBA sets the SQL-Modus to NO_ZERO_IN_DATE.
Two coulm's will work for ever

yes, but only for approx 63,000 years, unless you plan ahead now and use INTEGER instead of SMALLINT

Ok, if that's gonna happen i'll quit