HOURMINUTE

Hourminute is a time notation in which the hour and minute components are combined into a single value, typically by concatenating the two fields. The most common form is the four-digit HHMM representation used in many timetables and data stores. In this scheme, 9:30 is written as 0930 and 23:59 as 2359. When stored as text, leading zeros are often preserved to maintain a fixed width, which helps with lexicographic sorting and parsing.

Usage and context: Hourminute is frequently found in railway and airline timetables, bus schedules, and certain computer systems where a colon is impractical or where compact storage is desired. Although practical, it can introduce ambiguity if leading zeros are omitted or if the convention is not fixed-width. It does not by itself encode a time zone or date; it represents only the time of day.

Parsing and validation: In software, an hourminute value can be parsed by dividing by 100 to obtain the hour and using the remainder as minutes: hour = t / 100; minute = t % 100; then validate that 0 ≤ hour < 24 and 0 ≤ minute < 60. Some systems extend the concept to 100-based units for durations, but that is less common.

Relation to standards: ISO 8601 encodes times with separators (HH:MM) and can include time zone information; hourminute forms are pragmatic alternatives in specific contexts.

See also: time format, HHMM, 24-hour clock.