In Python, is epoch time returned by time() always measured from Jan 1, 1970?

Question

Is the epoch start time in Python independent of the platform (i.e. always 1/1/1970)?

Or is it platform dependent?

I want to serialize datetimes (with second

Answer 1

Epoch time (unix time) is a standard term:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time

Unix time, or POSIX time, is a system for describing instances in time, defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), 1 January 1970,[note 1] not counting leap seconds.[note 2] It is used widely in Unix-like and many other operating systems and file formats. It is neither a linear representation of time nor a true representation of UTC.[note 3] Unix time may be checked on some Unix systems by typing date +%s on the command line

That means if you use the epoch times through Python, it will be consistent across platforms. Your best bet for consistency is to use UTC in all cases.