Difference in minutes from two time fields in MySQL

Question

I set up my MySQL database with the field \'time\'

It is not HH:MM in the traditional sense, it is the time an event occurred, so an event with the value of 5:45 occ

Answer 1

I needed similar. Two useful functions: TIME_TO_SEC and SUBTIME.

e.g. if your time fields were normal HH:MM times, then

SELECT (TIME_TO_SEC(end_time) - TIME_TO_SEC(start_time))/60 AS `minutes` 

In your case, as I understand it, the times are backwards, ie. 12:00<6:00 so your end_time and start_time would need swapping.

If you wanted the output in HH:MM:SS you could do

SELECT SUBTIME(end_time, start_time)