AM/PM Column Name

Question

Without arguing the relative merits of storing a datetime this way...

If you had a column where you stored AM or PM what would you call that column?

EDIT:

I should have figured that there'd be a group of you who couldn't resist being snarky about the idea... Nowhere do you see that I'm about to do this, that I want to do this, that I'm unclear of the myriad of reasons not to do this... but still some of you feel compelled to be priggish and concern yourselves with how much smarter you are rather than take the question for what its worth and offer something useful.

I'm also very pleased that so many aren't deserving of this slur and brought forth some great ideas. Thanks for the thoughts.

Most groups of values have names, the values from 1-24 are known as hours, from 1-12 Months, etc. But for AM/PM what's the name for group, for the collection, for the domain... and they are clearly not "meridiem" because that is the name of a single point in time Noon. That would be like calling AD and BC either Christ's or Lord's. Whereas BCE or CE would probably fit into an "Era" column.

Answer 1

AM and PM stand for "ante meridiem" and "post meridiem".

So one possibility for the column is: meridiem CHAR(2)

Answer 2

I'd call it a terrible idea. Oh, without debating the merits? I'd call it "XM" or "meridiem", but both of these might be confusing. How'bout "amORpm"?

Answer 3

Looked up what MS calls it when you specify 't' or 'tt' in a format string, and they just say AM/PM Designator.

That didn't sit well with me, though, because the type of the column (if you must do this) should of course be bit. With that in mind, you want a column name where the value is clearly indicated by the trueness/falseness of the each record's value. Something more like IsPM, IsAM, IsAfterNoon, or IsPostMeridiem.

Answer 4

Ok so "meridiem" is official technical term for it, but keep in mind another programmer comes along and sees a bit field called this and will likely not know wth it is.

AMPM is a little more descriptive and I think a better name

Answer 5

HourPeriod -> first iteration on the clock (am) or second (pm)

Morning -> just store it as a bit

Zombie -> because that's what you are in the AM without your coffee (also, if you're storing datetime this way, you probably don't have strict naming conventions)

Alternatively, you could just do the conversion on the code-side and store the 24-hour time. 13:58 is always 'pm', 1:58 is always 'am'.

Answer 6

I'd call it meridiemoffset and store 0 or 12 in it. Easy to convert to AM or PM as necessary, but the main feature is that you can easily calculate the real hour by addition, even inside the SQL statement (which makes sorting easier and more obvious).

Answer 7

If you can't store time using a 24 hr clock and you HAVE to store AM/PM values, I'd probably have a bit column called PM_Timestamp where 0 = AM and 1 = PM... but I wouldn't like it.

Answer 8

Granted "meridiem" is the most accurate term given the abbreviations. However, it means "noon" in Latin so it could be confusing.

If you're shooting for pure readability (and are adamantly against datetime), I would recommend either IsMorning or IsAfternoon.

Answer 9

If you are using SQLServer, you can wrap non standard text with square brackets and call it "?M" ... so you'd use it like mytable.[?M] ;-)

PS-I know this can be done because my predecessor did it.

Answer 10

I think AMPM is the best choice. It's immediately obvious what it's meant to be.

Answer 11

How about:

 AM_OR_PM