How to get python to display current time (eastern)

Question

How can I get Python to display the time in eastern?

I\'ve looked over the python documentation but it\'s pretty confusing. I\'m using Python 3.

Thanks.

Answer 1

There is a much more intuitive way, of course:

from datetime import datetime
from pytz import timezone
tz = timezone('EST')
datetime.now(tz) 
## this returns a datetime object pointing to right now 
## according to the timezone info object handed in as the tz variable. 

Alternatively you can define your own datetime object and pass in tz as tzinfo, as you can see below:

datetime(2016, 3, 30, 11, 13, 24, tzinfo=tz)

Answer 2

You should use the package pytz if you'll be needing a lot of time zones, and you need to correctly handle the duplicate hour of daylight savings time (i.e. what happens from midnight to 1am).

For something simple though, it's easy enough to create your own time zone class:

import datetime

class EST5EDT(datetime.tzinfo):

    def utcoffset(self, dt):
        return datetime.timedelta(hours=-5) + self.dst(dt)

    def dst(self, dt):
        d = datetime.datetime(dt.year, 3, 8)        #2nd Sunday in March
        self.dston = d + datetime.timedelta(days=6-d.weekday())
        d = datetime.datetime(dt.year, 11, 1)       #1st Sunday in Nov
        self.dstoff = d + datetime.timedelta(days=6-d.weekday())
        if self.dston <= dt.replace(tzinfo=None) < self.dstoff:
            return datetime.timedelta(hours=1)
        else:
            return datetime.timedelta(0)

    def tzname(self, dt):
        return 'EST5EDT'

dt = datetime.datetime.now(tz=EST5EDT())

Here you are using the abstract base class datetime.tzinfo to create a EST5EDT class which describes what it means to be "Eastern Time Zone", namely your UTC offset (-5 hours) and when daylight savings time is in effect (btwn the 2nd Sunday of March and the 1st Sunday of November).

Btw the template above is pulled from the datetime docs: http://docs.python.org/library/datetime.html

Not sure what you mean "get Python to display the time in eastern", but using the dt object from the last line above:

    In [15]: print(dt)
2012-07-29 12:28:59.125975-04:00

    In [16]: print(dt.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
2012-07-29 12:28:59

    In [17]: print(dt.strftime('%H:%M:%S'))
12:28:59

    In [18]: print(dt.strftime('%s.%f'))  
1343579339.125975

Answer 3

Pytz library should be useful. Using Pytz (supports > 2.3) below code can get you the time according to eastern timezone.

from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from pytz import timezone

eastern = timezone('US/Eastern')
fmt = '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z%z'
loc_dt = eastern.localize(datetime(2012, 10, 29, 6, 0, 0))
print loc_dt.strftime(fmt)

Answer 4

If you need the entire timestamp:

import datetime
print (datetime.datetime.utcnow() - datetime.timedelta(hours=4))

If you just need the date in YYYYmmdd format

print (datetime.datetime.utcnow() - datetime.timedelta(hours=4)).strftime('%Y%m%d')