How to make an unaware datetime timezone aware in python

Question

What I need to do

I have a timezone-unaware datetime object, to which I need to add a time zone in order to be able to compare it with other timezon

Answer 1

All of these examples use an external module, but you can achieve the same result using just the datetime module, as also presented in this SO answer:

from datetime import datetime
from datetime import timezone

dt = datetime.now()
dt.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc)

print(dt.replace(tzinfo=timezone.utc).isoformat())
'2017-01-12T22:11:31+00:00'

Fewer dependencies and no pytz issues.

NOTE: If you wish to use this with python3 and python2, you can use this as well for the timezone import (hardcoded for UTC):

try:
    from datetime import timezone
    utc = timezone.utc
except ImportError:
    #Hi there python2 user
    class UTC(tzinfo):
        def utcoffset(self, dt):
            return timedelta(0)
        def tzname(self, dt):
            return "UTC"
        def dst(self, dt):
            return timedelta(0)
    utc = UTC()