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I am dealing with dates in Python and I need to convert them to UTC timestamps to be used
inside Javascript. The following code does not work:
>>> d = datetime.date(2011,01,01)
>>> datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(time.mktime(d.timetuple()))
datetime.datetime(2010, 12, 31, 23, 0)
Converting the date object first to datetime also does not help. I tried the example at this link from, but:
from pytz import utc, timezone
from datetime import datetime
from time import mktime
input_date = datetime(year=2011, month=1, day=15)
and now either:
mktime(utc.localize(input_date).utctimetuple())
or
mktime(timezone('US/Eastern').localize(input_date).utctimetuple())
does work.
So general question: how can I get a date converted to seconds since epoch according to UTC?
If d = date(2011, 1, 1) is in UTC:
>>> from datetime import datetime, date
>>> import calendar
>>> timestamp1 = calendar.timegm(d.timetuple())
>>> datetime.utcfromtimestamp(timestamp1)
datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 1, 0, 0)
If d is in local timezone:
>>> import time
>>> timestamp2 = time.mktime(d.timetuple()) # DO NOT USE IT WITH UTC DATE
>>> datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp2)
datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 1, 0, 0)
timestamp1 and timestamp2 may differ if midnight in the local timezone is not the same time instance as midnight in UTC.
mktime() may return a wrong result if d corresponds to an ambiguous local time (e.g., during DST transition) or if d is a past(future) date when the utc offset might have been different and the C mktime() has no access to the tz database on the given platform. You could use pytz module (e.g., via tzlocal.get_localzone()) to get access to the tz database on all platforms. Also, utcfromtimestamp() may fail and mktime() may return non-POSIX timestamp if "right" timezone is used.
To convert datetime.date object that represents date in UTC without calendar.timegm():
DAY = 24*60*60 # POSIX day in seconds (exact value)
timestamp = (utc_date.toordinal() - date(1970, 1, 1).toordinal()) * DAY
timestamp = (utc_date - date(1970, 1, 1)).days * DAY
How can I get a date converted to seconds since epoch according to UTC?
To convert datetime.datetime (not datetime.date) object that already represents time in UTC to the corresponding POSIX timestamp (a float).
Python 3.3+
datetime.timestamp():
from datetime import timezone
timestamp = dt.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc).timestamp()
Note: It is necessary to supply timezone.utc explicitly otherwise .timestamp() assume that your naive datetime object is in local timezone.
Python 3 (< 3.3)
From the docs for datetime.utcfromtimestamp():
There is no method to obtain the timestamp from a datetime instance,
but POSIX timestamp corresponding to a datetime instance dt can be
easily calculated as follows. For a naive dt:
timestamp = (dt - datetime(1970, 1, 1)) / timedelta(seconds=1)
And for an aware dt:
timestamp = (dt - datetime(1970,1,1, tzinfo=timezone.utc)) / timedelta(seconds=1)
Interesting read: Epoch time vs. time of day on the difference between What time is it? and How many seconds have elapsed?
See also: datetime needs an "epoch" method
Python 2
To adapt the above code for Python 2:
timestamp = (dt - datetime(1970, 1, 1)).total_seconds()
where timedelta.total_seconds() is equivalent to (td.microseconds + (td.seconds + td.days * 24 * 3600) * 10**6) / 10**6 computed with true division enabled.
Example
from __future__ import division
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
def totimestamp(dt, epoch=datetime(1970,1,1)):
td = dt - epoch
# return td.total_seconds()
return (td.microseconds + (td.seconds + td.days * 86400) * 10**6) / 10**6
now = datetime.utcnow()
print now
print totimestamp(now)
Beware of floating-point issues.
Output
2012-01-08 15:34:10.022403
1326036850.02
How to convert an aware datetime object to POSIX timestamp
assert dt.tzinfo is not None and dt.utcoffset() is not None
timestamp = dt.timestamp() # Python 3.3+
On Python 3:
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone
epoch = datetime(1970, 1, 1, tzinfo=timezone.utc)
timestamp = (dt - epoch) / timedelta(seconds=1)
integer_timestamp = (dt - epoch) // timedelta(seconds=1)
On Python 2:
# utc time = local time - utc offset
utc_naive = dt.replace(tzinfo=None) - dt.utcoffset()
timestamp = (utc_naive - datetime(1970, 1, 1)).total_seconds()
For unix systems only:
>>> import datetime
>>> d = datetime.date(2011, 1, 1)
>>> d.strftime("%s") # <-- THIS IS THE CODE YOU WANT
'1293832800'
Note 1: dizzyf observed that this applies localized timezones. Don't use in production.
Note 2: Jakub Narębski noted that this ignores timezone information even for offset-aware datetime (tested for Python 2.7).
Assumption 1: You're attempting to convert a date to a timestamp, however since a date covers a 24 hour period, there isn't a single timestamp that represents that date. I'll assume that you want to represent the timestamp of that date at midnight (00:00:00.000).
Assumption 2: The date you present is not associated with a particular time zone, however you want to determine the offset from a particular time zone (UTC). Without knowing the time zone the date is in, it isn't possible to calculate a timestamp for a specific time zone. I'll assume that you want to treat the date as if it is in the local system time zone.
First, you can convert the date instance into a tuple representing the various time components using the timetuple() member:
dtt = d.timetuple() # time.struct_time(tm_year=2011, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=5, tm_yday=1, tm_isdst=-1)
You can then convert that into a timestamp using time.mktime:
ts = time.mktime(dtt) # 1293868800.0
You can verify this method by testing it with the epoch time itself (1970-01-01), in which case the function should return the timezone offset for the local time zone on that date:
d = datetime.date(1970,1,1)
dtt = d.timetuple() # time.struct_time(tm_year=1970, tm_mon=1, tm_mday=1, tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0, tm_wday=3, tm_yday=1, tm_isdst=-1)
ts = time.mktime(dtt) # 28800.0
28800.0 is 8 hours, which would be correct for the Pacific time zone (where I'm at).
I defined my own two functions
utc_time2datetime(utc_time, tz=None)
datetime2utc_time(datetime)
here:
import time
import datetime
from pytz import timezone
import calendar
import pytz
def utc_time2datetime(utc_time, tz=None):
# convert utc time to utc datetime
utc_datetime = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(utc_time)
# add time zone to utc datetime
if tz is None:
tz_datetime = utc_datetime.astimezone(timezone('utc'))
else:
tz_datetime = utc_datetime.astimezone(tz)
return tz_datetime
def datetime2utc_time(datetime):
# add utc time zone if no time zone is set
if datetime.tzinfo is None:
datetime = datetime.replace(tzinfo=timezone('utc'))
# convert to utc time zone from whatever time zone the datetime is set to
utc_datetime = datetime.astimezone(timezone('utc')).replace(tzinfo=None)
# create a time tuple from datetime
utc_timetuple = utc_datetime.timetuple()
# create a time element from the tuple an add microseconds
utc_time = calendar.timegm(utc_timetuple) + datetime.microsecond / 1E6
return utc_time
follow the python2.7 document, you have to use calendar.timegm() instead of time.mktime()
>>> d = datetime.date(2011,01,01)
>>> datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(calendar.timegm(d.timetuple()))
datetime.datetime(2011, 1, 1, 0, 0)
A complete time-string contains:
date
time
utcoffset [+HHMM or -HHMM]
For example:
1970-01-01 06:00:00 +0500 == 1970-01-01 01:00:00 +0000 == UNIX timestamp:3600
$ python3
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> from calendar import timegm
>>> tm = '1970-01-01 06:00:00 +0500'
>>> fmt = '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z'
>>> timegm(datetime.strptime(tm, fmt).utctimetuple())
3600
Note:
UNIX timestamp is a floating point number expressed in seconds since the epoch, in UTC.
Edit:
$ python3
>>> from datetime import datetime, timezone, timedelta
>>> from calendar import timegm
>>> dt = datetime(1970, 1, 1, 6, 0)
>>> tz = timezone(timedelta(hours=5))
>>> timegm(dt.replace(tzinfo=tz).utctimetuple())
3600
Using the arrow package:
>>> import arrow
>>> arrow.get(2010, 12, 31).timestamp
1293753600
>>> time.gmtime(1293753600)
time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=12, tm_mday=31,
tm_hour=0, tm_min=0, tm_sec=0,
tm_wday=4, tm_yday=365, tm_isdst=0)
the question is a little confused. timestamps are not UTC - they're a Unix thing. the date might be UTC? assuming it is, and if you're using Python 3.2+, simple-date makes this trivial:
>>> SimpleDate(date(2011,1,1), tz='utc').timestamp
1293840000.0
if you actually have the year, month and day you don't need to create the date:
>>> SimpleDate(2011,1,1, tz='utc').timestamp
1293840000.0
and if the date is in some other timezone (this matters because we're assuming midnight without an associated time):
>>> SimpleDate(date(2011,1,1), tz='America/New_York').timestamp
1293858000.0
[the idea behind simple-date is to collect all python's date and time stuff in one consistent class, so you can do any conversion. so, for example, it will also go the other way:
>>> SimpleDate(1293858000, tz='utc').date
datetime.date(2011, 1, 1)
]
Considering you have a datetime object called d,
use the following to get the timestamp in UTC:
d.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ")
And for the opposite direction, use following :
d = datetime.strptime("2008-09-03T20:56:35.450686Z", "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%fZ")
This works for me, pass through a function.
from datetime import timezone, datetime, timedelta
import datetime
def utc_converter(dt):
dt = datetime.datetime.now(timezone.utc)
utc_time = dt.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc)
utc_timestamp = utc_time.timestamp()
return utc_timestamp
# create start and end timestamps
_now = datetime.datetime.now()
str_start = str(utc_converter(_now))
_end = _now + timedelta(seconds=10)
str_end = str(utc_converter(_end))
i'm impressed of the deep discussion.
my 2 cents:
from datetime import datetime
import time
the timestamp in utc is:
timestamp = \
(datetime.utcnow() - datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds()
or,
timestamp = time.time()
if now results from datetime.now(), in the same DST
utcoffset = (datetime.now() - datetime.utcnow()).total_seconds()
timestamp = \
(now - datetime(1970,1,1)).total_seconds() - utcoffset
I get the server date and I need to get the difference of this date from GMT
I get
Datetime = "2011-04-27 2:17:45"
I would like to get the result like
Datetime = "2011-04-27 2:17:45 +0500"
Try this:
import datetime, pytz
now = datetime.datetime.now(pytz.timezone('Asia/Kolkata'))
print now.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z')
# prints: '2011-04-27 13:56:09 +0530'
From the example you have given, it looks to me that what you are looking for is datetime.isoformat. The example in the page shows how to convert the datetime values to the ISO format with the time zone information.
To do this, you have to know the timezone (or the UTC offset) of the server date. What you have here is a "naive" date, without timezone info, you can't guess the UTC difference.
I think the datetime module is what you need here:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.now()
datetime.datetime(2011, 4, 27, 11, 8, 26, 149000)
>>> datetime.utcnow()
datetime.datetime(2011, 4, 27, 8, 8, 47, 712000)
For a difference between two dates:
>>> dtnow = datetime.now()
>>> dtutc = datetime.utcnow()
>>> dtnow - dtutc
datetime.timedelta(0, 10792, 847000)
Look up the datetime module and the relevant classes in Python's docs.
A very powerful extension of the datetime standard python library is the dateutil one, that allows you to easily:
set the delta of your time zone:
parse dates with various convenient options (in our case we will use the default option, which will allow us to set our time zone)
So 1st set time zone, and default date with this zone:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> from dateutil import parser
>>> from dateutil.tz import tzoffset
>>> tz_plus_5 = tzoffset(None, 5 * 60 * 60) # offset is in seconds !
>>> default = datetime.now(tz_plus_5)
Now use this default date in the parsing:
>>> Datetime = "2011-04-27 2:17:45"
>>> my_date = parser.parse(Datetime, default=default)
>>> my_date
datetime.datetime(2011, 4, 27, 2, 17, 45, tzinfo=tzoffset(None, 18000))
>>> my_date.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %z")
'2011-04-27 02:17:45 +0500'
For those that simply need to get the offset between local time and UTC, the time module has an attribute time.altzone that specifies the difference between UTC and local time in seconds:
The offset of the local DST timezone, in seconds west of UTC, if one is defined. This is negative if the local DST timezone is east of UTC (as in Western Europe, including the UK). Only use this if daylight is nonzero.
Here's an example of how it works:
>>> datetime.now().isoformat()
'2011-09-01T17:26:46.971000'
>>> datetime.utcnow().isoformat()
'2011-09-01T15:27:32.699000'
>>> time.altzone / (60*60)
-2
Doesn't get much cleaner than that.
The time module can be initialized using seconds since epoch:
>>> import time
>>> t1=time.gmtime(1284286794)
>>> t1
time.struct_time(tm_year=2010, tm_mon=9, tm_mday=12, tm_hour=10, tm_min=19,
tm_sec=54, tm_wday=6, tm_yday=255, tm_isdst=0)
Is there an elegant way to initialize a datetime.datetime object in the same way?
datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp will do, if you know the time zone, you could produce the same output as with time.gmtime
>>> datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(1284286794)
datetime.datetime(2010, 9, 12, 11, 19, 54)
or
>>> datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(1284286794)
datetime.datetime(2010, 9, 12, 10, 19, 54)
Seconds since epoch to datetime to strftime:
>>> ts_epoch = 1362301382
>>> ts = datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(ts_epoch).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
>>> ts
'2013-03-03 01:03:02'
From the docs, the recommended way of getting a timezone aware datetime object from seconds since epoch is:
Python 3:
from datetime import datetime, timezone
datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, timezone.utc)
Python 2, using pytz:
from datetime import datetime
import pytz
datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, pytz.utc)
Note that datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp) and .utcfromtimestamp(timestamp) fail on windows for dates before Jan. 1, 1970 while negative unix timestamps seem to work on unix-based platforms. The docs say this:
"This may raise ValueError, if the timestamp is out of the range of
values supported by the platform C gmtime() function. It’s common for
this to be restricted to years in 1970 through 2038"
See also Issue1646728
For those that want it ISO 8601 compliant, since the other solutions do not have the T separator nor the time offset (except Meistro's answer):
from datetime import datetime, timezone
result = datetime.fromtimestamp(1463288494, timezone.utc).isoformat('T', 'microseconds')
print(result) # 2016-05-15T05:01:34.000000+00:00
Note, I use fromtimestamp because if I used utcfromtimestamp I would need to chain on .astimezone(...) anyway to get the offset.
If you don't want to go all the way to microseconds you can choose a different unit with the
isoformat() method.
I want to compare UTC timestamps from a log file with local timestamps. When creating the local datetime object, I use something like:
>>> local_time=datetime.datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12, 0, 0, 0,
tzinfo=pytz.timezone('Israel'))
I want to find an automatic tool that would replace thetzinfo=pytz.timezone('Israel') with the current local time zone.
Any ideas?
In Python 3.x, local timezone can be figured out like this:
>>> import datetime
>>> print(datetime.datetime.now(datetime.timezone.utc).astimezone().tzinfo)
AEST
It's a tricky use of datetime's code .
For python < 3.6, you'll need
>>> import datetime
>>> print(datetime.datetime.now(datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(0))).astimezone().tzinfo)
AEST
Try dateutil, which has a tzlocal type that does what you need.
to compare UTC timestamps from a log file with local timestamps.
It is hard to find out Olson TZ name for a local timezone in a portable manner. Fortunately, you don't need it to perform the comparison.
tzlocal module returns a pytz timezone corresponding to the local timezone:
from datetime import datetime
import pytz # $ pip install pytz
from tzlocal import get_localzone # $ pip install tzlocal
tz = get_localzone()
local_dt = tz.localize(datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12, 0, 0, 0), is_dst=None)
utc_dt = local_dt.astimezone(pytz.utc) #NOTE: utc.normalize() is unnecessary here
Unlike other solutions presented so far the above code avoids the following issues:
local time can be ambiguous i.e., a precise comparison might be impossible for some local times
utc offset can be different for the same local timezone name for dates in the past. Some libraries that support timezone-aware datetime objects (e.g., dateutil) fail to take that into account
Note: to get timezone-aware datetime object from a naive datetime object, you should use*:
local_dt = tz.localize(datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12, 0, 0, 0), is_dst=None)
instead of:
#XXX fails for some timezones
local_dt = datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12, 0, 0, 0, tzinfo=tz)
*is_dst=None forces an exception if given local time is ambiguous or non-existent.
If you are certain that all local timestamps use the same (current) utc offset for the local timezone then you could perform the comparison using only stdlib:
# convert a naive datetime object that represents time in local timezone to epoch time
timestamp1 = (datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12, 0, 0, 0) - datetime.fromtimestamp(0)).total_seconds()
# convert a naive datetime object that represents time in UTC to epoch time
timestamp2 = (datetime(2010, 4, 27, 9, 0) - datetime.utcfromtimestamp(0)).total_seconds()
timestamp1 and timestamp2 can be compared directly.
Note:
timestamp1 formula works only if the UTC offset at epoch (datetime.fromtimestamp(0)) is the same as now
fromtimestamp() creates a naive datetime object in the current local timezone
utcfromtimestamp() creates a naive datetime object in UTC.
I was asking the same to myself, and I found the answer in 1:
Take a look at section 8.1.7: the format "%z" (lowercase, the Z uppercase returns also the time zone, but not in the 4-digit format, but in the form of timezone abbreviations, like in [3]) of strftime returns the form "+/- 4DIGIT" that is standard in email headers (see section 3.3 of RFC 2822, see [2], which obsoletes the other ways of specifying the timezone for email headers).
So, if you want your timezone in this format, use:
time.strftime("%z")
[1] http://docs.python.org/2/library/datetime.html
[2] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2822#section-3.3
[3] Timezone abbreviations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_zone_abbreviations , only for reference.
The following appears to work for 3.7+, using standard libs:
from datetime import timedelta
from datetime import timezone
import time
def currenttz():
if time.daylight:
return timezone(timedelta(seconds=-time.altzone),time.tzname[1])
else:
return timezone(timedelta(seconds=-time.timezone),time.tzname[0])
First get pytz and tzlocal modules
pip install pytz tzlocal
then
from tzlocal import get_localzone
local = get_localzone()
then you can do things like
from datetime import datetime
print(datetime.now(local))
Here's a way to get the local timezone using only the standard library, (only works in a *nix environment):
>>> '/'.join(os.path.realpath('/etc/localtime').split('/')[-2:])
'Australia/Sydney'
You can use this to create a pytz timezone:
>>> import pytz
>>> my_tz_name = '/'.join(os.path.realpath('/etc/localtime').split('/')[-2:])
>>> my_tz = pytz.timezone(my_tz_name)
>>> my_tz
<DstTzInfo 'Australia/Sydney' LMT+10:05:00 STD>
...which you can then apply to a datetime:
>>> import datetime
>>> now = datetime.datetime.now()
>>> now
datetime.datetime(2014, 9, 3, 9, 23, 24, 139059)
>>> now.replace(tzinfo=my_tz)
>>> now
datetime.datetime(2014, 9, 3, 9, 23, 24, 139059, tzinfo=<DstTzInfo 'Australia/Sydney' LMT+10:05:00 STD>)
Here's a slightly more concise version of #vbem's solution:
from datetime import datetime as dt
dt.utcnow().astimezone().tzinfo
The only substantive difference is that I replaced datetime.datetime.now(datetime.timezone.utc) with datetime.datetime.utcnow(). For brevity, I also aliased datetime.datetime as dt.
For my purposes, I want the UTC offset in seconds. Here's what that looks like:
dt.utcnow().astimezone().utcoffset().total_seconds()
Avoiding non-standard module (seems to be a missing method of datetime module):
from datetime import datetime
utcOffset_min = int(round((datetime.now() - datetime.utcnow()).total_seconds())) / 60 # round for taking time twice
utcOffset_h = utcOffset_min / 60
assert(utcOffset_min == utcOffset_h * 60) # we do not handle 1/2 h timezone offsets
print 'Local time offset is %i h to UTC.' % (utcOffset_h)
To create an ISO formatted string that includes the ISO representation of your local time zone in Israel (+04:00) :
on a server in Israel:
>>> datetime.now(datetime.now().astimezone().tzinfo).isoformat()
'2021-09-07T01:02.030042+04:00'
This will create a "timezone aware" date object that will compare to any other datetime object in UTC or local time appropriately. But the time zone ISO representation (and the date/time string itself) will change if you ran this on a server in San Francisco at the exact same time, as I did:
on a server in San Francisco, CA, USA (Pacific):
>>> datetime.now(datetime.now().astimezone().tzinfo).isoformat()
'2021-09-06T14:01:02.030042-07:00'
The datetime objects in in both cases would be compatible with each other. So if you subtracted them you'd get a time delta of 0:
On a server anywhere in Python3.6+:
>>> (datetime.fromisoformat('2021-09-06T14:01:02.030042-07:00') -
... datetime.fromisoformat('2021-09-07T01:01:02.030042+04:00'))
datetime.timedelta(0)
Based on Thoku's answer above, here's an answer that resolves the time zone to the nearest half hour (which is relevant for some timezones eg South Australia's) :
from datetime import datetime
round((round((datetime.now()-datetime.utcnow()).total_seconds())/1800)/2)
Based on J. F. Sebastian's answer, you can do this with the standard library:
import time, datetime
local_timezone = datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(seconds=-time.timezone))
Tested in 3.4, should work on 3.4+
You may be happy with pendulum
>>> pendulum.datetime(2015, 2, 5, tz='local').timezone.name
'Israel'
Pendulum has a well designed API for manipulating dates. Everything is TZ-aware.
I have also been looking for a simple way to read the local host configuration and get timezone aware local_time based on it. As of python 3.6+ the simplest approach is use dateutil.tz which will read /etc/localtime and assist in getting timezone aware datetime object.
Here is more info on it: https://dateutil.readthedocs.io/en/stable/tz.html
The implementation to accomplish what you're looking for is as follows:
from datetime import datetime
from dateutil import tz
local_time = datetime.now(tz.gettz())
This will provide you the following local_time:
2019-10-18 13:41:06.624536-05:00
Additional Resources I used in researching this topic:
Paul Ganssle Presentation about time zones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4UCKCo9FWY
pytz: The Fastest Footgun in the West
https://blog.ganssle.io/articles/2018/03/pytz-fastest-footgun.html
I want to compare UTC timestamps from a log file with local timestamps
If this is your intent, then I wouldn't worry about specifying specific tzinfo parameters or any additional external libraries. Since Python 3.5, the built in datetime module is all you need to create a UTC and a local timestamp automatically.
import datetime
f = "%a %b %d %H:%M:%S %Z %Y" # Full format with timezone
# tzinfo=None
cdatetime = datetime.datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12, 0, 0, 0) # 1. Your example from log
cdatetime = datetime.datetime.now() # 2. Basic date creation (default: local time)
print(cdatetime.strftime(f)) # no timezone printed
# Tue Apr 27 12:00:00 2010
utctimestamp = cdatetime.astimezone(tz=datetime.timezone.utc) # 1. convert to UTC
utctimestamp = datetime.datetime.now(tz=datetime.timezone.utc) # 2. create in UTC
print(utctimestamp.strftime(f))
# Tue Apr 27 17:00:00 UTC 2010
localtimestamp = cdatetime.astimezone() # 1. convert to local [default]
localtimestamp = datetime.datetime.now().astimezone() # 2. create with local timezone
print(localtimestamp.strftime(f))
# Tue Apr 27 12:00:00 CDT 2010
The '%Z' parameter of datetime.strftime() prints the timezone acronym into the timestamp for humans to read.
For simple things, the following tzinfo implementation can be used, which queries the OS for time zone offsets:
import datetime
import time
class LocalTZ(datetime.tzinfo):
_unixEpochOrdinal = datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp(0).toordinal()
def dst(self, dt):
return datetime.timedelta(0)
def utcoffset(self, dt):
t = (dt.toordinal() - self._unixEpochOrdinal)*86400 + dt.hour*3600 + dt.minute*60 + dt.second + time.timezone
utc = datetime.datetime(*time.gmtime(t)[:6])
local = datetime.datetime(*time.localtime(t)[:6])
return local - utc
print datetime.datetime.now(LocalTZ())
print datetime.datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12, 0, 0, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
# If you're in the EU, the following datetimes are right on the DST change.
print datetime.datetime(2013, 3, 31, 0, 59, 59, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
print datetime.datetime(2013, 3, 31, 1, 0, 0, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
print datetime.datetime(2013, 3, 31, 1, 59, 59, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
# The following datetime is invalid, as the clock moves directly from
# 01:59:59 standard time to 03:00:00 daylight savings time.
print datetime.datetime(2013, 3, 31, 2, 0, 0, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
print datetime.datetime(2013, 10, 27, 0, 59, 59, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
print datetime.datetime(2013, 10, 27, 1, 0, 0, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
print datetime.datetime(2013, 10, 27, 1, 59, 59, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
# The following datetime is ambigous, as 02:00 can be either DST or standard
# time. (It is interpreted as standard time.)
print datetime.datetime(2013, 10, 27, 2, 0, 0, tzinfo=LocalTZ())
tzlocal from dateutil.
Code example follows. Last string suitable for use in filenames.
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> from dateutil.tz import tzlocal
>>> str(datetime.now(tzlocal()))
'2015-04-01 11:19:47.980883-07:00'
>>> str(datetime.now(tzlocal())).replace(' ','-').replace(':','').replace('.','-')
'2015-04-01-111947-981879-0700'
>>>
First, note that the question presents an incorrect initialization of an aware datetime object:
>>> local_time=datetime.datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12, 0, 0, 0,
... tzinfo=pytz.timezone('Israel'))
creates an invalid instance. One can see the problem by computing the UTC offset of the resulting object:
>>> print(local_time.utcoffset())
2:21:00
(Note the result which is an odd fraction of an hour.)
To initialize an aware datetime properly using pytz one should use the localize() method as follows:
>>> local_time=pytz.timezone('Israel').localize(datetime.datetime(2010, 4, 27, 12))
>>> print(local_time.utcoffset())
3:00:00
Now, if you require a local pytz timezone as the new tzinfo, you should use the tzlocal package as others have explained, but if all you need is an instance with a correct local time zone offset and abbreviation then tarting with Python 3.3, you can call the astimezone() method with no arguments to convert an aware datetime instance to your local timezone:
>>> local_time.astimezone().strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M %Z %z')
'2010-04-27 05:00 EDT -0400'
now_dt = datetime.datetime.now()
utc_now = datetime.datetime.utcnow()
now_ts, utc_ts = map(time.mktime, map(datetime.datetime.timetuple, (now_dt, utc_now)))
offset = int((now_ts - utc_ts) / 3600)
hope this will help you.
The best I can come up with for now is this monstrosity:
>>> datetime.utcnow() \
... .replace(tzinfo=pytz.UTC) \
... .astimezone(pytz.timezone("Australia/Melbourne")) \
... .replace(hour=0,minute=0,second=0,microsecond=0) \
... .astimezone(pytz.UTC) \
... .replace(tzinfo=None)
datetime.datetime(2008, 12, 16, 13, 0)
I.e., in English, get the current time (in UTC), convert it to some other timezone, set the time to midnight, then convert back to UTC.
I'm not just using now() or localtime() as that would use the server's timezone, not the user's timezone.
I can't help feeling I'm missing something, any ideas?
I think you can shave off a few method calls if you do it like this:
>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.now(pytz.timezone("Australia/Melbourne")) \
.replace(hour=0, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0) \
.astimezone(pytz.utc)
BUT… there is a bigger problem than aesthetics in your code: it will give the wrong result on the day of the switch to or from Daylight Saving Time.
The reason for this is that neither the datetime constructors nor replace() take DST changes into account.
For example:
>>> now = datetime(2012, 4, 1, 5, 0, 0, 0, tzinfo=pytz.timezone("Australia/Melbourne"))
>>> print now
2012-04-01 05:00:00+10:00
>>> print now.replace(hour=0)
2012-04-01 00:00:00+10:00 # wrong! midnight was at 2012-04-01 00:00:00+11:00
>>> print datetime(2012, 3, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, tzinfo=tz)
2012-03-01 00:00:00+10:00 # wrong again!
However, the documentation for tz.localize() states:
This method should be used to construct localtimes, rather
than passing a tzinfo argument to a datetime constructor.
Thus, your problem is solved like so:
>>> import pytz
>>> from datetime import datetime, date, time
>>> tz = pytz.timezone("Australia/Melbourne")
>>> the_date = date(2012, 4, 1) # use date.today() here
>>> midnight_without_tzinfo = datetime.combine(the_date, time())
>>> print midnight_without_tzinfo
2012-04-01 00:00:00
>>> midnight_with_tzinfo = tz.localize(midnight_without_tzinfo)
>>> print midnight_with_tzinfo
2012-04-01 00:00:00+11:00
>>> print midnight_with_tzinfo.astimezone(pytz.utc)
2012-03-31 13:00:00+00:00
No guarantees for dates before 1582, though.
#hop's answer is wrong on the day of transition from Daylight Saving Time (DST) e.g., Apr 1, 2012. To fix it tz.localize() could be used:
tz = pytz.timezone("Australia/Melbourne")
today = datetime.now(tz).date()
midnight = tz.localize(datetime.combine(today, time(0, 0)), is_dst=None)
utc_dt = midnight.astimezone(pytz.utc)
The same with comments:
#!/usr/bin/env python
from datetime import datetime, time
import pytz # pip instal pytz
tz = pytz.timezone("Australia/Melbourne") # choose timezone
# 1. get correct date for the midnight using given timezone.
today = datetime.now(tz).date()
# 2. get midnight in the correct timezone (taking into account DST)
#NOTE: tzinfo=None and tz.localize()
# assert that there is no dst transition at midnight (`is_dst=None`)
midnight = tz.localize(datetime.combine(today, time(0, 0)), is_dst=None)
# 3. convert to UTC (no need to call `utc.normalize()` due to UTC has no
# DST transitions)
fmt = '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z%z'
print midnight.astimezone(pytz.utc).strftime(fmt)
This is more straightforward with dateutil.tz than pytz:
>>>import datetime
>>>import dateutil.tz
>>>midnight=(datetime.datetime
.now(dateutil.tz.gettz('Australia/Melbourne'))
.replace(hour=0, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0)
.astimezone(dateutil.tz.tzutc()))
>>>print(midnight)
2019-04-26 14:00:00+00:00
The tzinfo documentation recommends dateutil.tz since Python 3.6. The tzinfo objects from dateutil.tz have no problems with anomalies like DST without requiring the localize functionality of pytz. Using the example from user3850:
>>> now = (datetime.datetime(2012, 4, 1, 5,
... tzinfo = dateutil.tz.gettz('Australia/Melbourne')))
>>> print(now.replace(hour = 0).astimezone(dateutil.tz.tzutc()))
2012-03-31 13:00:00+00:00
Setting the TZ environment variable modifies what timezone Python's date and time functions work with.
>>> time.gmtime()
(2008, 12, 17, 1, 16, 46, 2, 352, 0)
>>> time.localtime()
(2008, 12, 16, 20, 16, 47, 1, 351, 0)
>>> os.environ['TZ']='Australia/Melbourne'
>>> time.localtime()
(2008, 12, 17, 12, 16, 53, 2, 352, 1)
Each time zone has a number, eg US/Central = -6. This is defined as the offset in hours from UTC. Since 0000 is midnight, you can simply use this offset to find the time in any time zone when it is midnight UTC. To access that, I believe you can use time.timezone
According to The Python Docs, time.timezone actually gives the negative value of this number:
time.timezone
The offset of the local (non-DST) timezone, in seconds west of UTC (negative in most of Western Europe, positive in the US, zero in the UK).
So you would simply use that number for the time in hours if it's positive (i.e., if it's midnight in Chicago (which has a +6 timezone value), then it's 6000 = 6am UTC).
If the number is negative, subtract from 24. For example, Berlin would give -1, so 24 - 1 => 2300 = 11pm.
It's worth remarking that we can adapt the answer given by #jfs to find tomorrow's midnight or yesterday's midnight, etc. The trick is to add a certain number of days to the aware timezone. This works because although this usually adds 24 hours, sometimes it might add 23 or 25 based on DST issues.
from datetime import datetime, time, timedelta
import pytz
def midnight_UTC(offset):
# Construct a timezone object
tz = pytz.timezone('Australia/Melbourne')
# Work out today/now as a timezone-aware datetime
today = datetime.now(tz)
# Adjust by the offset. Note that that adding 1 day might actually move us 23 or 25
# hours into the future, depending on daylight savings. This works because the {today}
# variable is timezone aware
target_day = today + timedelta(days=1) * offset
# Discard hours, minutes, seconds and microseconds
midnight_aware = tz.localize(
datetime.combine(target_day, time(0, 0, 0, 0)), is_dst=None)
# Convert to UTC
midnight_UTC = midnight_aware.astimezone(pytz.utc)
return midnight_UTC
print("The UTC time of the previous midnight is:", midnight_UTC(0))
print("The UTC time of the upcoming midnight is:", midnight_UTC(1))