How to make a datetime object aware (not naive)?

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 timezone-aware datetime objects. I do not want to convert my entire application to timezone unaware for this one legacy case.

What I've Tried

First, to demonstrate the problem:

Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Jun 24 2010, 21:47:49) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import datetime
>>> import pytz
>>> unaware = datetime.datetime(2011,8,15,8,15,12,0)
>>> unaware
datetime.datetime(2011, 8, 15, 8, 15, 12)
>>> aware = datetime.datetime(2011,8,15,8,15,12,0,pytz.UTC)
>>> aware
datetime.datetime(2011, 8, 15, 8, 15, 12, tzinfo=<UTC>)
>>> aware == unaware
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: can't compare offset-naive and offset-aware datetimes

First, I tried astimezone:

>>> unaware.astimezone(pytz.UTC)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: astimezone() cannot be applied to a naive datetime
>>>

It's not terribly surprising this failed, since it's actually trying to do a conversion. Replace seemed like a better choice (as per How do I get a value of datetime.today() in Python that is "timezone aware"?):

>>> unaware.replace(tzinfo=pytz.UTC)
datetime.datetime(2011, 8, 15, 8, 15, 12, tzinfo=<UTC>)
>>> unaware == aware
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: can't compare offset-naive and offset-aware datetimes
>>> 

But as you can see, replace seems to set the tzinfo, but not make the object aware. I'm getting ready to fall back to doctoring the input string to have a timezone before parsing it (I'm using dateutil for parsing, if that matters), but that seems incredibly kludgy.

Also, I've tried this in both Python 2.6 and Python 2.7, with the same results.

Context

I am writing a parser for some data files. There is an old format I need to support where the date string does not have a timezone indicator. I've already fixed the data source, but I still need to support the legacy data format. A one time conversion of the legacy data is not an option for various business BS reasons. While in general, I do not like the idea of hard-coding a default timezone, in this case it seems like the best option. I know with reasonable confidence that all the legacy data in question is in UTC, so I'm prepared to accept the risk of defaulting to that in this case.

Answer 1

Django users will need a simple workaround whenever they don't want to import a lot of timezone packages ... try this for Naive, Aware-UTC, and Aware-LocalTimeZone date-times

Check Django's settings.py and set your server TIME_ZONE appropriately See also: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/topics/i18n/timezones/#time-zoness

# TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'
TIME_ZONE = 'US/Eastern'
USE_TZ = True

1. To create a datetime that is Unaware of timezone (Naive):

   from datetime import datetime
   datetime = Datetime.now()
   
   

2. To create a UTC Aware Datetime: (these are datetimes that think your local time is Greenwich, England or Western Europe):

   from django.utils import timezone
   from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
   
   datetime_TZ_aware_UTC = datetime.now(timezone.utc)
   
   

3. To create DateTimes that are aware of local timezones ...

   dt = datetime.now()
   
   dyr = dt.strftime('%Y');
   dmth = dt.strftime('%m');
   ddy = dt.strftime('%d');
   dhr = dt.strftime('%H');
   dmin = dt.strftime('%M');
   dsec = dt.strftime('%S')
   
   datetime_TZ_aware = datetime(int(dyr), int(dmth), int(ddy), int(dhr), int(dmin), int(dsec), tzinfo=ZoneInfo("US/Eastern"))
   
   

4. To change an aware datetime to an unaware naive datetime, try:

   datetime_TZ_unaware = datetime_TZ_aware.replace(tzinfo=None)
   
   

You can now use your new timezone-aware datetime to update your database:

table.objects.filter(id=1).update(date_update = datetime_TZ_aware)

[API Ouput] "date_update": "2025-02-02T23:45:09-05:00"

Answer 2

• As per the documentation datetime.utcnow:

  • Warning: Because naive datetime objects are treated by many datetime methods as local times, it is preferred to use aware datetimes to represent times in UTC. As such, the recommended way to create an object representing the current time in UTC is by calling datetime.now(timezone.utc).

  • This option is covered in other answers, but the document citation is not.

• As per the documentation datetime.utcfromtimestamp

  • Warning: Because naive datetime objects ... by calling datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, tz=timezone.utc).

  • This option is not covered in other answers.

• Tested in python 3.11.2

from datetime import datetime, timezone
import time  # for timestamp
import pytz  # for aware comparison

now = datetime.now(tz=timezone.utc)
aware = datetime(now.year, now.month, now.day, now.hour, now.minute, now.second, now.microsecond, tzinfo=pytz.UTC)

print(now == aware)
[out]: True

fts = datetime.fromtimestamp(time.time(), tz=timezone.utc)
aware = datetime(fts.year, fts.month, fts.day, fts.hour, fts.minute, fts.second, fts.microsecond, tzinfo=pytz.UTC)

print(fts == aware)
[out]: True

Answer 3

Above all mentioned approaches, when it is a Unix timestamp, there is a very simple solution using pandas.

import pandas as pd

unix_timestamp = 1513393355
pst_tz = pd.Timestamp(unix_timestamp, unit='s', tz='US/Pacific')
utc_tz = pd.Timestamp(unix_timestamp, unit='s', tz='UTC')

Answer 4

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, timezone

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

print(dt.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()

Answer 5

I wrote this Python 2 script in 2011, but never checked if it works on Python 3.

I had moved from dt_aware to dt_unaware:

dt_unaware = dt_aware.replace(tzinfo=None)

and dt_unware to dt_aware:

from pytz import timezone
localtz = timezone('Europe/Lisbon')
dt_aware = localtz.localize(dt_unware)

Answer 6

for those that just want to make a timezone aware datetime

import datetime

datetime.datetime(2019, 12, 7, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)

for those that want a datetime with a non utc timezone starting in python 3.9 stdlib

import datetime
from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo

datetime.datetime(2019, 12, 7, tzinfo=ZoneInfo("America/Los_Angeles")) 

Answer 7

Yet another way of having a datetime object NOT naive:

>>> from datetime import datetime, timezone
>>> datetime.now(timezone.utc)
datetime.datetime(2021, 5, 1, 22, 51, 16, 219942, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc)

Answer 8

Here is a simple solution to minimize changes to your code:

from datetime import datetime
import pytz

start_utc = datetime.utcnow()
print ("Time (UTC): %s" % start_utc.strftime("%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S"))

Time (UTC): 09-01-2021 03:49:03

tz = pytz.timezone('Africa/Cairo')
start_tz = datetime.now().astimezone(tz)
print ("Time (RSA): %s" % start_tz.strftime("%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S"))

Time (RSA): 09-01-2021 05:49:03

Answer 9

Python 3.9 adds the zoneinfo module so now only the standard library is needed!

from zoneinfo import ZoneInfo
from datetime import datetime
unaware = datetime(2020, 10, 31, 12)

Attach a timezone:

>>> unaware.replace(tzinfo=ZoneInfo('Asia/Tokyo'))
datetime.datetime(2020, 10, 31, 12, 0, tzinfo=zoneinfo.ZoneInfo(key='Asia/Tokyo'))
>>> str(_)
'2020-10-31 12:00:00+09:00'

Attach the system's local timezone:

>>> unaware.replace(tzinfo=ZoneInfo('localtime'))
datetime.datetime(2020, 10, 31, 12, 0, tzinfo=zoneinfo.ZoneInfo(key='localtime'))
>>> str(_)
'2020-10-31 12:00:00+01:00'

Subsequently it is properly converted to other timezones:

>>> unaware.replace(tzinfo=ZoneInfo('localtime')).astimezone(ZoneInfo('Asia/Tokyo'))
datetime.datetime(2020, 10, 31, 20, 0, tzinfo=backports.zoneinfo.ZoneInfo(key='Asia/Tokyo'))
>>> str(_)
'2020-10-31 20:00:00+09:00'

Wikipedia list of available time zones

---

Windows has no system time zone database, so here an extra package is needed:

pip install tzdata  

---

There is a backport to allow use of zoneinfo in Python 3.6 to 3.8:

pip install backports.zoneinfo

Then:

from backports.zoneinfo import ZoneInfo

Answer 10

Changing between timezones

import pytz
from datetime import datetime

other_tz = pytz.timezone('Europe/Madrid')

# From random aware datetime...
aware_datetime = datetime.utcnow().astimezone(other_tz)
>> 2020-05-21 08:28:26.984948+02:00

# 1. Change aware datetime to UTC and remove tzinfo to obtain an unaware datetime
unaware_datetime = aware_datetime.astimezone(pytz.UTC).replace(tzinfo=None)
>> 2020-05-21 06:28:26.984948

# 2. Set tzinfo to UTC directly on an unaware datetime to obtain an utc aware datetime
aware_datetime_utc = unaware_datetime.replace(tzinfo=pytz.UTC)
>> 2020-05-21 06:28:26.984948+00:00

# 3. Convert the aware utc datetime into another timezone
reconverted_aware_datetime = aware_datetime_utc.astimezone(other_tz)
>> 2020-05-21 08:28:26.984948+02:00

# Initial Aware Datetime and Reconverted Aware Datetime are equal
print(aware_datetime1 == aware_datetime2)
>> True

Answer 11

quite new to Python and I encountered the same issue. I find this solution quite simple and for me it works fine (Python 3.6):

unaware=parser.parse("2020-05-01 0:00:00")
aware=unaware.replace(tzinfo=tz.tzlocal()).astimezone(tz.tzlocal())

Answer 12

Use dateutil.tz.tzlocal() to get the timezone in your usage of datetime.datetime.now() and datetime.datetime.astimezone():

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil import tz

unlocalisedDatetime = datetime.now()

localisedDatetime1 = datetime.now(tz = tz.tzlocal())
localisedDatetime2 = datetime(2017, 6, 24, 12, 24, 36, tz.tzlocal())
localisedDatetime3 = unlocalisedDatetime.astimezone(tz = tz.tzlocal())
localisedDatetime4 = unlocalisedDatetime.replace(tzinfo = tz.tzlocal())

Note that datetime.astimezone will first convert your datetime object to UTC then into the timezone, which is the same as calling datetime.replace with the original timezone information being None.

Answer 13

I agree with the previous answers, and is fine if you are ok to start in UTC. But I think it is also a common scenario for people to work with a tz aware value that has a datetime that has a non UTC local timezone.

If you were to just go by name, one would probably infer replace() will be applicable and produce the right datetime aware object. This is not the case.

the replace( tzinfo=... ) seems to be random in its behaviour. It is therefore useless. Do not use this!

localize is the correct function to use. Example:

localdatetime_aware = tz.localize(datetime_nonaware)

Or a more complete example:

import pytz
from datetime import datetime
pytz.timezone('Australia/Melbourne').localize(datetime.now())

gives me a timezone aware datetime value of the current local time:

datetime.datetime(2017, 11, 3, 7, 44, 51, 908574, tzinfo=<DstTzInfo 'Australia/Melbourne' AEDT+11:00:00 DST>)

Answer 14

I use this statement in Django to convert an unaware time to an aware:

from django.utils import timezone

dt_aware = timezone.make_aware(dt_unaware, timezone.get_current_timezone())

Answer 15

In the format of unutbu's answer; I made a utility module that handles things like this, with more intuitive syntax. Can be installed with pip.

import datetime
import saturn

unaware = datetime.datetime(2011, 8, 15, 8, 15, 12, 0)
now_aware = saturn.fix_naive(unaware)

now_aware_madrid = saturn.fix_naive(unaware, 'Europe/Madrid')

Answer 16

This codifies @Sérgio and @unutbu's answers. It will "just work" with either a pytz.timezone object or an IANA Time Zone string.

def make_tz_aware(dt, tz='UTC', is_dst=None):
    """Add timezone information to a datetime object, only if it is naive."""
    tz = dt.tzinfo or tz
    try:
        tz = pytz.timezone(tz)
    except AttributeError:
        pass
    return tz.localize(dt, is_dst=is_dst) 

This seems like what datetime.localize() (or .inform() or .awarify()) should do, accept both strings and timezone objects for the tz argument and default to UTC if no time zone is specified.

Answer 17

In general, to make a naive datetime timezone-aware, use the localize method:

import datetime
import pytz

unaware = datetime.datetime(2011, 8, 15, 8, 15, 12, 0)
aware = datetime.datetime(2011, 8, 15, 8, 15, 12, 0, pytz.UTC)

now_aware = pytz.utc.localize(unaware)
assert aware == now_aware

For the UTC timezone, it is not really necessary to use localize since there is no daylight savings time calculation to handle:

now_aware = unaware.replace(tzinfo=pytz.UTC)

works. (.replace returns a new datetime; it does not modify unaware.)