[Python-Dev] Issue 2736: datetimes and Unix timestamps

[Guido van Rossum]

Agreed that having a robust tzinfo object representing "local time,
whatever it is" would be a good feature too. This shouldn't have to
depend on the Olson tz database; it should just consult the libc
localtime function.

--Guido

On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 11:30 AM, Alexander Belopolsky
<alexander.belopolsky at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 4, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>> A big +1 on making conversions between POSIX timestamps and datetime
>> (with or without timezone) easier.
>
> I am all for achieving this goal, but I think the root of the problem
> is not the lack of mxDT's ticks() method.  Note that someone who
> requires robust behavior across the DST change would still be puzzled
> about what to supply as arguments to the .ticks(offset=0.0,dst=-1)
> method.
>
> I think the key feature that is missing from datetime is the ability
> to obtain local time complete with timezone offset.  See issue 9527.
> Once we have that, adding  .ticks() that requires a timezone aware
> datetime instance will complete the puzzle.
>
> The problem with adding .ticks() to naive datetime instances is the
> inherent ambiguity in what such instances represent. mxDT resolves
> this by offering offset and dst arguments, but this is just moving the
> problem from one place to another without solving it.



-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)