The YEAR type is a one-byte type used for
representing years.
MySQL retrieves and displays YEAR values in
YYYY format. The range is
1901 to 2155.
You can specify 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.
