Converting from local -> UTC

Thu Jul 17 13:55:44 EDT 2008

On 2008-07-16 20:00, Keith Hughitt wrote:
> Thanks Gabriel!
> 
> That helps clear things up for me. The above method works very well. I
> only have one remaining question:
> How can I pass a datetime object to MySQL?'
> 
> So far, what I've been doing is building the query as a string, for
> example:
> 
> query = "INSERT INTO image VALUES(%d, %d, %s, '%s')" % (id, meas,
> date, 'jpg')
> cursor.execute(query)

Use binding parameters and it should work:

query = "INSERT INTO image VALUES(%d, %d, %s, '%s')"
cursor.execute(query, (id, meas, date, 'jpg'))

Database interfaces typically do not support timezones, so I'm not
sure why you are making things more complicated by adding a timezone
to the date/time value.

> This works fine for regular datetime objects, which are passed as
> strings similar
> to: "2003-10-01 00:00:00." When incorporating a timezone, however, the
> resulting string
> is of the form "2003-10-01 00:00:00+00:00." Unfortunately, MySQL does
> not recognize
> the offset.
> 
> I know you said you don't use MySQL, but how would you do something
> execute a similar query
> on the database you normally interface with?

> Thanks,
> Keith
> 
> 
> On Jul 15, 12:04 am, "Gabriel Genellina" <gagsl-... at yahoo.com.ar>
> wrote:
>> En Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:06:30 -0300,KeithHughitt  
>> <keith.hugh... at gmail.com> escribió:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jul 12, 12:52 am, "Gabriel Genellina" <gagsl-... at yahoo.com.ar>
>>> wrote:
>>>> En Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:42:37 -0300,KeithHughitt  
>>>> <keith.hugh... at gmail.com> escribió:
>>>>> I am having a little trouble figuring out how to convert a python
>>>>> datetime to UTC. I have a UTC date (e.g. 2008-07-11 00:00:00). I would
>>>>> like to create a UTC date so that when I send it to MySQL (which
>>>>> treats all dates at local dates by default), it will already have
>>>>> incorporated the proper UTC offset. I've tried looking through the
>>>>> docshttp://python.active-venture.com/lib/datetime-datetime.html), but
>>>>> have not had any luck.
>>>> You have to use a "timezone aware" datetime object. If all you want is  
>>>> to  
>>>> store an UTC date, the tzinfo demo classes that you can find in the  
>>>> Python  
>>>> docs at <http://docs.python.org/lib/datetime-tzinfo.html> may be enough.
>>> Thanks for advice Gabriel. I downloaded the tzinfo demo class, saved
>>> it as
>>> UTC.py and imported it. I'm still not exactly sure how to use it
>>> though. It looks like
>>> the file already creates an instance of the UTC tzinfo class (line 20:
>>> "utc = UTC()"),
>>> however, when I try to test it out in the interpreter, it cannot be
>>> found. I'm new
>>> to python, and there is probably something obvious I'm missing, but do
>>> you have any ideas?
>> The import statement in Python doesn't behave the same way as similar  
>> statements in other languages - and it may be confusing you. I'll try to  
>> explain it using this example.
>> You have:
>> - a *file* UTC.py, containing the source code for the *module* UTC. It  
>> contains:
>> - a *class* definition (UTC) and
>> - an *instance* of that class, utc.
>>
>> --- begin UTC.py ---If you pass a "timezone aware" datetime object as a SQL parameter
>> class UTC(tzinfo):
>>    ...
>> utc = UTC()
>> ...
>> --- end UTC.py ---
>>
>>> Here is what I'm attempting:
>>> ============ output begin =============
>>> Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Apr 21 2008, 11:12:42)
>>> [GCC 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)] on linux2
>>> Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>>>> import datetime, UTC
>> Here you have imported the *module* UTC. That is, the name UTC now refers  
>> to a newly created module just loaded from the UTC.py file.
>>
>>>>>> t = datetime.datetime(2008, 7, 14, 00, 00, 00, UTC())
>>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>>> TypeError: 'module' object is not callable
>> The error comes from UTC(): UTC is a module, UTC() is attempting to "call"  
>> it, and since modules are not callable objects, we get a TypeError.
>>
>>>>>> utc
>>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>>> NameError: name 'utc' is not defined
>> The *only* name we have imported so far is UTC - the module. Lowercase utc  
>> isn't defined.
>>
>>>>>> utc = UTC()
>>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>>   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>>> TypeError: 'module' object is not callable
>> Same as above...
>>
>> Ok, how to solve it? We know that UTC refers to the *module* with the same  
>> name. To get the *class* inside that module, use UTC.UTC - try again in  
>> the interpreter. To create a new instance of that class, you can use  
>> UTC.UTC(). To obtain the instance already created in the UTC module, use  
>> UTC.utc
>>
>> **OR**
>>
>> Import those names explicitely:
>>
>> py> from UTC import UTC
>>
>> In this case the name UTC refers to the *class* inside the module.
>> In this particular example it may be confusing - both have the same name.  
>> Another example from the standard library: the poplib module contains a  
>> POP3 class, so after executing this line:
>>
>> py> from poplib import POP3
>>
>> the name POP3 refers to that class. The poplib module itself isn't  
>> directly available.
>> Back to the UTC module, you could use:
>>
>> py> from UTC import utc
>>
>> and now utc refers to the *instance* already created inside the module.  
>> This last form may be the most convenient in your case:
>>
>> py> import datetime
>> py> from UTC import utc
>> py> print datetime.datetime(2008, 7, 14, 20, 30, 0, 0, utc)
>> 2008-07-14 20:30:00+00:00
>>
>> --
>> Gabriel Genellina
> 
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

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