Why doesn't pytz localize() produce a datetime object with tzinfo matching the tz object that localized it?

Question

Is there anyone who can help me understand what\'s going on here?

import pytz
from datetime import datetime
tz = pytz.timezone(\'Europe/Berlin\')
print repr(         


        

Answer 1

They are the same time zone - "Europe/Berlin".

When you are printing them, the output includes the abbreviation and offset that applies at that particular point in time.

If you examine the tz data sources, you'll see:

# Zone  NAME            GMTOFF   RULES       FORMAT   [UNTIL]
Zone    Europe/Berlin   0:53:28  -           LMT      1893 Apr
                        1:00     C-Eur       CE%sT    1945 May 24 2:00
                        1:00     SovietZone  CE%sT    1946
                        1:00     Germany     CE%sT    1980
                        1:00     EU          CE%sT

So it would appear that when the time zone has not localized a datetime, then it just uses the first entry.

It would also appear that pytz doesn't retain the extra 28 seconds from the original local mean time deviation - but that doesn't matter unless you are working with dates in Berlin before April 1893.