Python: Figure out local timezone

Question

I want to compare UTC timestamps from a log file with local timestamps. When creating the local datetime object, I use something like:

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Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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'
>>> 

Answer 3

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)

Answer 4

Try dateutil, which has a tzlocal type that does what you need.

Answer 5

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)

Answer 6

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())