title: In a database, would you use a date field or year and month fields if you only need year and month?
body: <p>I am setting up a table where I need the year and month. In MySQL I believe I have 2 options: (1) 2 fields: 1 for year, 1 for month or (2) a date field (the day would always be 1).</p>
  
  <p>The 2 fields has the advantage of being some what faster (I think) because MySQL doesn't have to convert the value from a date to an integer although this is probably negligible. The date field has the advantage of "automatic" validation: someone can't get data into the db with the the month being 13 or the year being 1. With a date field you can also do date calculations more easily (ie, months between).</p>
  
  <p>Which would you use? Or is there another you would use?</p>