MySQL Cookbook

Converting Between Times and Seconds

Problem

You have a time value but you want a value in seconds, or vice versa.

Solution

TIME values are specialized representations of a simpler unit—seconds—and you can convert back and forth from one to the other using TIME_TO_SEC( ) and SEC_TO_TIME( ).

Discussion

TIME_TO_SEC( ) converts a TIME value to the equivalent number of seconds, and SEC_TO_TIME( ) does the opposite. The following query demonstrates a simple conversion in both directions:

mysql> SELECT t1,
    -> TIME_TO_SEC(t1) AS 'TIME to seconds',
    -> SEC_TO_TIME(TIME_TO_SEC(t1)) AS 'TIME to seconds to TIME'
    -> FROM time_val;
+----------+-----------------+-------------------------+
| t1       | TIME to seconds | TIME to seconds to TIME |
+----------+-----------------+-------------------------+
| 15:00:00 |           54000 | 15:00:00                |
| 05:01:30 |           18090 | 05:01:30                |
| 12:30:20 |           45020 | 12:30:20                |
+----------+-----------------+-------------------------+

To express time values as minutes, hours, or days, perform the appropriate divisions:

mysql> SELECT t1,
    -> TIME_TO_SEC(t1) AS 'seconds',
    -> TIME_TO_SEC(t1)/60 AS 'minutes',
    -> TIME_TO_SEC(t1)/(60*60) AS 'hours',
    -> TIME_TO_SEC(t1)/(24*60*60) AS 'days'
    -> FROM time_val; +----------+---------+---------+-------+------+ | t1 | seconds | minutes | hours | days | +----------+---------+---------+-------+------+ | 15:00:00 | 54000 | 900.00 | 15.00 | 0.62 | | 05:01:30 | 18090 | 301.50 | 5.03 | 0.21 | | 12:30:20 | 45020 | 750.33 | 12.51 | 0.52 | +----------+---------+---------+-------+------+ ...