Duration field NOT time

[rockcliff15]

Hi guys,

this may be a really basic question but what is the best way to record durations, not time?

I want to have a table that records charging data such as below:

startDate	startTime	Duration (hh:mm:ss)
15/04/2012	12:00:00	13:00:00

In this example you can see we started charging the device at 12pm on 15/04/2012 for 13 hours, from this I will be working out the endDate/time using dateAdd etc.

Do I set the duration field up as a dateTime and if so how do I avoid the DB thinking that the field is a time and not a duration, meaning that the endDate would be 1pm on the 15/04/2012 instead of the correct 1am on the 16/04/2012?
Cheers

[RuralGuy]

If I were you I would use a LongInteger field and record the seconds of duration which can then be converted to anything you want.

[rockcliff15]

If I were you I would use a LongInteger field and record the seconds of duration which can then be converted to anything you want.

Thanks for the suggestion, can you think of any other way as I will also be producing a form as a front end to this table and this way the users will have to convert each duration into seconds themselves.

[RuralGuy]

Have them enter the value any way you want and *you* do the conversion in code before storing.

[rockcliff15]

Have them enter the value any way you want and *you* do the conversion in code before storing.

Can this be done using a split form?

[RuralGuy]

I've never used a split form. If the user already has the duration value in hh:mm:ss then go ahead and store it in a text field that way.

[rockcliff15]

I've never used a split form. If the user already has the duration value in hh:mm:ss then go ahead and store it in a text field that way.

Thanks I'll do that and when I need to display the dateCompleted I'll use a series of substrings and dateAdd.

Cheers