>Hi,
>
>I need to store time in a new field (I don't use TimeDate field yet). I don't really need to store seconds; hours and minutes is all I need. So, initially, I am thinking of making the new field 5 char long (e.g. "02:12"). But I am wondering, can someone offer a reason(s), why it might be better to create this field as 8 characters and store the seconds, even though I won't use them now. In the future update I will convert this database to a SQL Server and probably will combine another DATE field with this new TIME field into one DateTime.
>
>Thank you in advance for any input.

5 is good (at least). Don't go under 5 because you may need time values like 11:15 which have 4 digits. Don't try to save : if you think easy casting and future. 8 and 11 are optional and could be done later too by simply altering the size.

ie:
cast(myTime as datetime) simply works both in VFP and SQL server when you go with hh:mm format.
cast('0:0' as datetime) works in SQL server but not '0' as it does in VFP.
Cetin