title: What would be the best way to store birthdate(birthday) field with optional year
body: <p>I have mysql database, with birthdate column as date.</p>
  
  <p>What would be the best way to save into this column, with optional year. Should I just put some random year on it? what is the best practice to save birthday in database.</p>
  
  <p>I create 3 text field in cakephp, day, month, and year.. but not sure how to approach this, to save in database, since if I randomly put the year (maybe 0001, since 0000 is not accepted), when I pull it back, it will show the year.</p>