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How to convert the local time into utc time in python

I am trying to convert the local time into UTC time. But getting the below error.
Error: an integer is required (got type str)
from datetime import datetime
starts_date = '2021-07-30 09:30:00'(timestamp without time zone)
ts = starts_date
x = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(ts)
x_ts = x.timestamp()

Be sure that datetime is imported correctly as from datetime import datetime. Can be a bit confusing but the method utcfromtimestamp belongs to datetime.datetime and not datetime itself.

Here is a working example to convert a timestamp of (now) to a UTC timestamp.
from datetime import datetime as dt
# Create a timestamp object for now.
ts = dt.timestamp(dt.now())
# Convert now to a UTC timestamp.
dt.utcfromtimestamp(ts).timestamp()
>>> 1627637013.657752

datetime.utcfromtimestamp() takes an integer that represent the amount of seconds passed since January 1st 1970.
This means with
from datetime import datetime as dt
print(dt.utcfromtimestamp(0))
you get
1970-01-01 00:00:00

How to convert string datetime to UTC UNIX?

I have date in the as string in the following format: 202001010000
I am trying to convert this to UNIX format and get the result in UTC
I did:
import datetime
stime = "202001010000"
print(int(datetime.datetime.strptime(stime, "%Y%m%d%H%M").replace(tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc).timestamp()))
and this is giving me the output in UNIX, but in CEST format.
With the above code I get: 1577836800 but I want the output to be 1577833200
What is the mistake I am doing?

You're setting time zone to UTC when converting to datetime. But since your input represents time in Germany you want a time zone that is active there. EX:
from datetime import datetime
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo # Python 3.9+, can use backports.zoneinfo for older versions
stime = "202001010000"
# stime represents time in Germany so we use time zone
time_zone = ZoneInfo('Europe/Berlin')
# to datetime, with tz set:
dtobj = datetime.strptime(stime, "%Y%m%d%H%M").replace(tzinfo=time_zone)
# unix time
ts = dtobj.timestamp()
print(ts)
# 1577833200.0
# back to datetime, again specify time zone
dtobj = datetime.fromtimestamp(ts, tz=time_zone)
print(dtobj)
# 2020-01-01 00:00:00+01:00
Note that if the input represents the same time zone your OS is configured to use, this works correctly without setting a time zone. But I think it's better to be explicit here, to avoid confusion if you e.g. run this script on a machine configured to use another time zone.

What you're trying to get is 7 hours behind and you cannot do that from your start date. You must push your start date back 1 day and push your hours forward 17. This code will work for you
import datetime
stime = "201912310000"
my_date = datetime.datetime.strptime(stime, "%Y%m%d%H%M")
my_date_utc = my_date.replace(hour=17)
my_timestamp = my_date_utc.timestamp()
print(int(my_timestamp))

'datetime.datetime' object has no attribute 'read'

Users in my app have date_joined fields that are in this format: 2014-12-14 14:46:43.379518+00:00
In order to pass this datetime along to Intercom.io, it must be a UNIX timestamp like this: 1426020706 (this is not the same time, just an example).
I've tried several methods I've read here on Stack Overflow (nothing in this question has the same starting time format: Converting datetime.date to UTC timestamp in Python), but none have worked. mktime() seemed promising, but I got "'datetime.datetime' object has no attribute 'mktime'."
I just tried this:
import time
import dateutil.parser
import member.models import Member
member = Member.objects.get(email="aspeksnijder#outlook.com")
date_joined = member.date_joined
dt = dateutil.parser.parse(date_joined)
print int(time.mktime(dt.timetuple()))
It returned "'datetime.datetime' object has no attribute 'read'". How can I accomplish this?

It seems you have an aware datetime object. If you print it then it looks like:
2014-12-14 14:46:43.379518+00:00
To be sure print(repr(date_joined)).
Converting datetime.date to UTC timestamp in Python shows several ways how you could get the timestamp e.g.,
timestamp = date_joined.timestamp() # in Python 3.3+
Or on older Python versions:
from datetime import datetime
# local time = utc time + utc offset
utc_naive = date_joined.replace(tzinfo=None) - date_joined.utcoffset()
timestamp = (utc_naive - datetime(1970, 1, 1)).total_seconds()
Note: timestamp = calendar.timegm(date_joined.utctimetuple()) would also work in your case but it may return a wrong result silently if you pass it a naive datetime object that represents local time by mistake.
If your input is a time string then convert the time string into a datetime object first.

What about (using the dateutil and pytz packages):
import dateutil.parser
from datetime import datetime
import calendar
import pytz
def str2ts(s):
''' Turns a string into a non-naive datetime object, then get the timestamp '''
# However you get from your string to datetime.datetime object
dt = dateutil.parser.parse(s) # String to non-naive datetime
dt = pytz.utc.normalize(dt) # Normalize datetime to UTC
ts = calendar.timegm(dt.timetuple()) # Convert UTC datetime to UTC timestamp
return int(ts)
def ts2str(ts):
'''Convert a UTC timestamp into a UTC datetime, then format it to a string'''
dt = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(ts) # Convert a UTC timestamp to a naive datetime object
dt = dt.replace(tzinfo=pytz.utc) # Convert naive datetime to non-naive
return dt.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f%z')
Which we can test with:
# A list of strings corresponding to the same time, with different timezone offsets
ss = [
'2014-12-14 14:46:43.379518+00:00',
'2014-12-14 15:46:43.379518+01:00',
'2014-12-14 16:46:43.379518+02:00',
'2014-12-14 17:46:43.379518+03:00',
]
for s in ss:
ts = str2ts(s)
s2 = ts2str(ts)
print ts, s2
Output:
1418568403 2014-12-14 14:46:43.000000+0000
1418568403 2014-12-14 14:46:43.000000+0000
1418568403 2014-12-14 14:46:43.000000+0000
1418568403 2014-12-14 14:46:43.000000+0000
These output all the same timestamps, and "verification" formatted strings.

You can try the following Python 3 code:
import time, datetime
print(time.mktime(datetime.datetime.strptime("2014-12-14 14:46:43.379518", '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f').replace(tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc).timetuple()))
which prints:
1418568403.0

I had that problem when I used input from Django's DateField, which is displayed in a form of XXXX-YY-ZZ: parse(django_datefield) causes the exception.
The solution: use str(django_datefield).
parse(str(django_datefield))

I know this is an old post, but I want to highlight that the answer is likely what #Peter said in his comment:
It looks like member.date_joined is already a datetime object, and there's no need to parse it. – Peter Feb 25 '17 at 0:33
So-- your model probably already parses into a datetime.datetime object for you.

python: convert date timestamp to epoch unix time and figure out number of days remaining?

I want to convert 2014-08-14 20:01:28.242 into a unix timestamp 245293529385 and subtract this by the current timestamp in order to figure out how many days have past and are ultimately remaining by subtracting this value from 14.
Scenario: user signs up and I want to count down the number of days remaining in their trial.

time.strptime to the rescue! Use the format string %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f. For example:
import time
t = '2014-08-14 20:01:28.242'
ts = time.strptime(t, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
timestamp = time.mktime(ts)
Now to convert it to a datetime (from: How do you convert a Python time.struct_time object into a datetime object? ):
from datetime import datetime
dt = datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp)

There are two parts:
Convert input time string into datetime object
#!/usr/bin/env python
from datetime import datetime
dt = datetime.strptime('2014-08-14 20:01:28.242', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%f')
Convert datetime object to Unix time ("seconds since epoch")
The result depends on what time zone is used for the input time e.g., if the input is in UTC then the corresponding POSIX timestamp is:
timestamp = (dt - datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds()
# -> 1408046488.242
If your input is in the local timezone then see How do I convert local time to UTC in Python?

Converting datetime to POSIX time

How do I convert a datetime or date object into a POSIX timestamp in python? There are methods to create a datetime object out of a timestamp, but I don't seem to find any obvious ways to do the operation the opposite way.

import time, datetime
d = datetime.datetime.now()
print time.mktime(d.timetuple())

For UTC calculations, calendar.timegm is the inverse of time.gmtime.
import calendar, datetime
d = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
print calendar.timegm(d.timetuple())

Note that Python now (3.5.2) includes a built-in method for this in datetime objects:
>>> import datetime
>>> now = datetime.datetime(2020, 11, 18, 18, 52, 47, 874766)
>>> now.timestamp() # Local time
1605743567.874766
>>> now.replace(tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc).timestamp() # UTC
1605725567.874766 # 5 hours delta (I'm in UTC-5)

In python, time.time() can return seconds as a floating point number that includes a decimal component with the microseconds. In order to convert a datetime back to this representation, you have to add the microseconds component because the direct timetuple doesn't include it.
import time, datetime
posix_now = time.time()
d = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(posix_now)
no_microseconds_time = time.mktime(d.timetuple())
has_microseconds_time = time.mktime(d.timetuple()) + d.microsecond * 0.000001
print posix_now
print no_microseconds_time
print has_microseconds_time

Best conversion from posix/epoch to datetime timestamp and the reverse:
this_time = datetime.datetime.utcnow() # datetime.datetime type
epoch_time = this_time.timestamp() # posix time or epoch time
this_time = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(epoch_time)

It depends
Is your datetime object timezone aware or naive?
Timezone Aware
If it is aware it's simple
from datetime import datetime, timezone
aware_date = datetime.now(tz=timezone.utc)
posix_timestamp = aware_date.timestamp()
as date.timestamp() gives you "POSIX timestamp"
NOTE: more accurate to call it an epoch/unix timestamp as it may not be POSIX compliant
Timezone Naive
If it's not timezone aware (naive), then you'd need to know what timezone it was originally in so we can use replace() to convert it into a timezone aware date object. Let's assume that you've stored/retrieved it as UTC Naive. Here we create one, as an example:
from datetime import datetime, timezone
naive_date = datetime.utcnow() # this date is naive, but is UTC based
aware_date = naive_date.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc) # this date is no longer naive
# now we do as we did with the last one
posix_timestamp = aware_date.timestamp()
It's always better to get to a timezone aware date as soon as you can to prevent issues that can arise with naive dates (as Python will often assume they are local times and can mess you up)
NOTE: also be careful with your understanding of the epoch as it is platform dependent