Question

Greetings,
I am trying to implement a TimeField model which only consists of HH:MM (ie 16:46) format, I know it is possible to format a regular Python time object but I am lost about how to manage this with Django.

Cheers

Answer 1

DateTime fields will always store also seconds; however, you can easily tell the template to just show the hours and minute, with the time filter:

{{ value|time:"H:M" }}

where “value” is the variable containing the datetime field.

Of course, you can also resort to other tricks, like cutting out the seconds from the field while saving; it would require just a small change to the code in the view handling the form, to do something like this:

if form.is_valid():
  instance = form.save(commit=False)
  instance.nosecs = instance.nosecs.strptime(instance.nosecs.strftime("%H:%M"), "%H:%M")
  instance.save()

(note: this is an ugly and untested code, just to give the idea!)

Finally, you should note that the admin will still display the seconds in the field.
It should not be a big concern, though, because admin should be only used by a kind of users that can be instructed not to use that part of the field.
In case you want to patch also the admin, you can still assign your own widget to the form, and thus having the admin using it. Of course, this would mean a significant additional effort.