In need of duration (MM:SS) to do calculations

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1

I have a table of songs and their durations. How can i display this as MM:SS and then summarize those durations to show as a summary of how long a “playlist” is.

2

I’ve done this before but don’t remember the exact formulas. So I am cheating a bit here by letting ChatGPT answer :slight_smile: (with some edits…)

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In Grist, you can use column-wide Python formulas to compute on your data. If you have durations in MM:SS format in Grist and want to sum them, here’s a method leveraging Grist’s Python capabilities:

  1. Convert MM:SS to Seconds:

    1. Suppose your durations are in a column named Duration.
    2. Create a new column, say Seconds. Set its formula to:
      minutes, seconds = map(int, $Duration.split(":"))
return minutes * 60 + seconds

  2. Sum the Seconds:

    • Add a summary table to get the sum of Seconds column (total, or grouped by something).

  3. Convert the Sum Back to MM:SS Format:

    1. Create another column, say TotalDuration, at the position where you want to display the total duration in MM:SS.
    2. Set its formula (for the cell where you want the total) to:
      total_seconds = $Seconds
return f"{total_seconds // 60}:{total_seconds % 60:02}"
3

Awesome thanks so much, after using that i was able to use AI to get my total per playlist. very cool.

Thanks.