Time Type

[RustyRick]

I need a field to indicate the amount of Time allocated for an event. There will not be any calculations from it. Just a record.

Am I best to just use Short Text instead of a number? Like 22, 10, 72 minutes? Instead of a Date/Time Type?

[pbaldy]

Personally I'd use a numeric type, probably Long Integer, to store the number of minutes (or other appropriate interval). I wouldn't bet on the powers that be never wanting to calculate something. Total time for events in May or whatever. From number of minutes (or whatever) it's not hard to have a function that displays text. It's much harder to parse text to calculate later. In other words, you're more flexible with a numeric type than text.

[June7]

A Number (Long Integer or Double) would be better. And all entries in same unit of measure. Someday you'll find a reason to do calcs with it.

[RustyRick]

No calculations in this case. It is just telling competitors how much time is allowed. So if there is ten to hundreds of competitors their pre-printed scorecard shows the time allotted for that event. That's why I thought Short Text creates the least memory space. Like 4 places is big enough.

[June7]

I think number data type uses less storage.
But it's your db, do what you want.