What time format is this? (not UNIX, not UTC, nothing)

Question

I'm importing data from another system to MySQL, its a CSV file. The "Date" field however contains cryptic of 3-digit time entries, here's a random sample set:

> 540
> 780
> 620
> 965

What's this? obviously its not 5:40 and 6:20. But it's not UNIX either (I tried 1225295XXX before I realized the time range this represents is about 16 minutes)

Anyone recognize these?

Update: I just noticed that further down in the replies, a coworker who's closer to the data just opened a new SO account and added some more data. It seems like these numeric entries are just time entries (not date). Still clueless.

IMHO, if no one can recognise this, then it probably isn't some (if obscure) standard time format and is more likely that these entries are foreign keys.

Update 2: Many thanks to all! we found the answer visually, but as usual, SO pulled through clutch.

Answer 1

It's the number of minutes since midnight in five minute intervals. Your range of values should be 0 to 1440

Answer 2

swatch internet time

day is divided into 1,000 equal parts. very metric altogether.

Answer 3

I've seen some systems where the date is stored in a special table and elsewhere as an id to it. This might be one of them

Answer 4

I think you'd be best off asking the original authors...

Alternatively, can you insert a date into the old system and export it? If you can do that then you should be able to reverse-engineer it very easily.

Answer 5

Here is the solution... thanks....

hmoya

9:00:00 AM 540 9:15:00 AM 555 9:30:00 AM 570 9:45:00 AM 585 10:00:00 AM 600 10:15:00 AM 615 10:30:00 AM 630 10:45:00 AM 645 11:00:00 AM 660 11:15:00 AM 675 11:30:00 AM 690 11:45:00 AM 705 12:00:00 PM 720 12:15:00 PM 735 12:30:00 PM 750 12:45:00 PM 765 1:00:00 PM 780 1:15:00 PM 795 1:30:00 PM 810 1:45:00 PM 825 2:00:00 PM 840 2:15:00 PM 855 2:30:00 PM 870 2:45:00 PM 885 3:00:00 PM 900 3:15:00 PM 915 3:30:00 PM 930 3:45:00 PM 945 4:00:00 PM 960 4:15:00 PM 975 4:30:00 PM 990 4:45:00 PM 1005 5:00:00 PM 1020 5:15:00 PM 1035 5:30:00 PM 1050 5:45:00 PM 1065 6:00:00 PM 1080 6:15:00 PM 1095 6:30:00 PM 1110 6:45:00 PM 1125 7:00:00 PM 1140

Answer 6

Are they are supposed to represent dates or times? If dates, then they are probably just an offset from a 'well known' epoch (like time_t are seconds from 1-Jan-70).

If you don't have documentation to find the epoch you'll need an example to work it out from.

Answer 7

This represent time, no date. And the same code-time appear in different date.

Answer 8

could be a julian date...?

Answer 9

There is no way to know for sure. I could be beats, but then again, it might not be.