Surpassing MySQL's TIME value limit of 838:59:59

Question

The title might be a bit confusing so allow me to explain. I'm using a table to record my work logs. Every day I'll create an entry stating from what time to what time I have worked and I'll add a comment describing what I did.

I then use a query to compare the timestamps to figure out exactly how many hours and minutes I have worked that day. Additionally, I use a query to calculate the sum of hours and minutes I have worked the entire year. That's where I'm running into a problem. My query is as follows.

SELECT TIME_FORMAT(SEC_TO_TIME(SUM(TIME_TO_SEC(TIMEDIFF(entry_end_time, entry_start_time)))), '%H:%i') 
AS total FROM entry 
WHERE entry_date BETWEEN '2012-01-01' AND '2012-12-31' AND user_id = 3

By default, MySQL TIME fields allow a time range of '-838:59:59' to '838:59:59'. I have currently logged more than 900 hours of work this year though, and I want the result of my query to reflect this. Instead, the result is 838:59:59, which makes sense because that is the limit.

Is there any way around this so the result of the query can go beyond 839 hours, or would I have to use something like PHP to go over the entire table and add it all up? I kind of want to avoid that if possible.

Answer 1

Have a look at timestampdiff which doesn't have the TIME limitation. I.e. something like (untested):

SELECT CONCAT(
        TIMESTAMPDIFF(HOURS, entry_end_time, entry_start_time), 
        ":",
        MOD(TIMESTAMPDIFF(MINUTES, entry_end_time, entry_start_time),60)
      )
AS total FROM entry 
WHERE entry_date BETWEEN '2012-01-01' AND '2012-12-31' AND user_id = 3

The concats not ideal, I'm sure there will be a more elegant solution.

Answer 2

Some simple math can do the trick,I hardcoded a random number of seconds(10000000)

SELECT CONCAT(FLOOR(10000000/3600),':',FLOOR((10000000%3600)/60),':',(10000000%3600)%60)

Fiddle

2777:46:40