Flex DateField and MySQL default date value 0000-00-00 - mysql

Question

I created a service and callResponder (Via Generate Service Call and Generate Form in Flash Builder 4) that query a MySQL database for a name and a birth date.
My problem is so simple I guess but I haven't been able to find the solution...
When I have an empty date in MySQL (0000-00-00), my binded DateField indicates 1899-11-30
I tried almost everything possible... A custom labelFunction, a custom function called straight after the call to my service to try to handle my data like this.. :
protected function parseDate(date:Date):void
{
if (date.getFullYear() == -1) {
friendbirthdate.selectedDate = null;
} else {
var df:DateFormatter = new DateFormatter;
df.formatString = 'YYYY-MM-DD';
friendbirthdate.selectedDate = date;
}
}
Unfortunately, this works only partially. When I try to update this same form in the database I get disconnected. I'm missing something here and would greatly appreciate a tip or two :-)
THANKS!

Answer 1

I recommend that you store NULL for unknown dates, as opposed to '0000-00-00'. NULL is a more accurate value in this case.
If you want to store it as NULL and display it as a different value you can do something like this:
SELECT COALESCE(date_column,'0000-00-00') as formatted_date
FROM your_table

Answer 2

Don't know if it will help somebody but I had trouble to insert values from a form, containing a DateField. That Form has been generated through the Flash Builder Generate Form tool.
The problem is that the service generated by Flash Builder expect a Date Object, no matter what... If you submit the form without selecting a date in the DateField, the service call crashes.
Let's have a look at a part of the generated sample service (Create and Update functions), we can see that PHP is expecting to transform a Date Object to a String like this :
mysqli_stmt_bind_param($stmt, 'sss', $item->friendname, $item->friendlastname, $item->friendbirth->toString('YYYY-MM-dd HH:mm:ss'));
First of all, be sure that your Date field in MySQL has as NULL default value.
Then alter the create and update functions like this :
if ($item->friendbirth == null)
$friendbirth = null;
else
$friendbirth = $item->friendbirth->toString('yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss');
mysqli_stmt_bind_param($stmt, 'sss', $item->friendname, $item->friendnickname, $friendbirth);
This way, the service call script won't try to do kinda null->toString('...')