PT2H30M

PT2H30M is an ISO 8601 duration representing a period of two hours and thirty minutes. In this notation, the letter P designates a duration (a period of time), and the letter T marks the start of the time components. Within the time portion, H stands for hours and M stands for minutes, so PT2H30M specifies 2 hours and 30 minutes.

In terms of quantities, PT2H30M equals 2.5 hours, which is 9000 seconds or 150 minutes. It contains no days, months, or other units, and the presence of T clarifies that the numbers following it pertain to time rather than calendar dates. This distinction is important because M can denote months when it appears before the T in a duration.

Common uses for PT2H30M include specifying durations in scheduling, data interchange, metadata, and APIs that adopt ISO 8601 durations. It is supported by many programming languages and data formats that parse ISO durations, and it can be combined with date components in longer expressions, such as P1D (one day) or P3DT4H for a duration spanning days and hours.

For human-readable display, PT2H30M can be represented as 2:30:00 in hours, minutes, and seconds, or described verbally as two hours and thirty minutes. When representing durations, using the T separator is essential to avoid confusion with calendar date elements.