[issue31212] datetime: min date (0001-01-01 00:00:00) can't be converted to local timestamp

[Sam Kagan]

Sam Kagan <skagan at nrao.edu> added the comment:

I encountered this issue in Python 3.8. I consider it to be a bug because it's an instance of a class-defined constant (datetime.min) not working with a method of that class (timestamp) when all other values that the class could take work with the method AND the constant works with all of the class' other methods. And it has practical implications: As belopolsky said above, "a reasonable design can use datetime.min/max as placeholders for unknown times far in the past/future compensating for the lack [of] datetime ±inf."

Since datetime.min lies so close to the edges of datetime's value-space, perhaps it should be made offset-aware and placed in UTC so that it stops breaking timestamp() when the user is in the wrong timezone. Alternatively, there could be a note in the documentation for datetime.timestamp() about this edge case. Assuming similarly bizarre behavior happens at datetime.max for one or more datetime methods (and for consistency's sake), it should probably be put in UTC as well.

----------
nosy: +skagan_NRAO
versions: +Python 3.8 -Python 3.6

_______________________________________
Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue31212>
_______________________________________