A way to store time without seconds in SQL Server

Question

I want to save time in my SQL Server database in this format:

hh:mm

and not this:

hh:mm:ss

Is that possible? Is there a unique data type for that (I tried to go over the list of data types but failed to find; tried also to search on MSDN and didn't find). Is there another way? I really do not want the second to be stored.

Answer 1

Use Format function available from SQL Server 2012

select format(getdate(),'hh:mm')

Insert into sometable
(timepart)
values
(
format(getdate(),'hh:mm'))

Output:

07:08

Answer 2

No there isn't a data type for this. The smallest is time(0), which is accurate to one second.

SELECT
    -- Returns time in the format hh:mm:ss
    CAST(GETDATE() AS TIME(0))
;

You could add a check constraint to ensure the seconds are always equal to 00, but I'm not sure what value this would add.