As you can see, the format for time data is

hh:mm:ss[.n*]

Breaking this down, we see that:

• hh stands for hours. Each hour is represented by two digits from 00 to 23.
• mm stands for minutes. Each minute is represented two digits from 00 to 59.
• ss stands for seconds. Each second is represented by two digits from 00 to 59.
• n* stands for fractional seconds and is optional. It ranges from 0 to 9999999. By default, this is set to seven digits.

So there we have the TIME data type. Its default value is 00:00:00. You'll also notice that TIME uses a 24-hour clock, so you'd write, for example, 14:25 for 2:25 PM.

You can set the precision for the fractional seconds by enclosing a value in parentheses, while declaring a column:

• TIME(1)—formats all time data as hh:mm:ss.n,
• TIME(5)—formats all time data as hh:mm:ss.nnnnn.

Note that TIME and TIME(7) are the same. Also, it's good to know that TIME(0) takes only 3 bytes, but TIME(7) takes 5 bytes. We recommend setting the precision of TIME to just what you need for the values in that column.

Setting a value in a TIME column requires quotes:

SELECT
  Code,
  DepartureTime
FROM Route
WHERE ArrivalTime = '20:15:00';

You can also use other comparison operators with TIME values, including >, >=, <, <=, and !=.