Module dates

Return the localized display name for the given timezone. The timezone may be specified using a datetime or tzinfo object.

>>> from pytz import timezone
>>> dt = time(15, 30, tzinfo=timezone('America/Los_Angeles'))
>>> get_timezone_name(dt, locale='en_US')
u'Pacific Standard Time'
>>> get_timezone_name(dt, width='short', locale='en_US')
u'PST'

If this function gets passed only a tzinfo object and no concrete datetime, the returned display name is indenpendent of daylight savings time. This can be used for example for selecting timezones, or to set the time of events that recur across DST changes:

>>> tz = timezone('America/Los_Angeles')
>>> get_timezone_name(tz, locale='en_US')
u'Pacific Time'
>>> get_timezone_name(tz, 'short', locale='en_US')
u'PT'

If no localized display name for the timezone is available, and the timezone is associated with a country that uses only a single timezone, the name of that country is returned, formatted according to the locale:

>>> tz = timezone('Europe/Berlin')
>>> get_timezone_name(tz, locale='de_DE')
u'Deutschland'
>>> get_timezone_name(tz, locale='pt_BR')
u'Hor\xe1rio Alemanha'

On the other hand, if the country uses multiple timezones, the city is also included in the representation:

>>> tz = timezone('America/St_Johns')
>>> get_timezone_name(tz, locale='de_DE')
u"Kanada (St. John's)"

The uncommon parameter can be set to True to enable the use of timezone representations that are not commonly used by the requested locale. For example, while in French the central European timezone is usually abbreviated as "HEC", in Canadian French, this abbreviation is not in common use, so a generic name would be chosen by default:

>>> tz = timezone('Europe/Paris')
>>> get_timezone_name(tz, 'short', locale='fr_CA')
u'France'
>>> get_timezone_name(tz, 'short', uncommon=True, locale='fr_CA')
u'HEC'

Parameters:

• dt_or_tzinfo - the datetime or tzinfo object that determines the timezone; if a tzinfo object is used, the resulting display name will be generic, i.e. independent of daylight savings time; if None, the current date in UTC is assumed
• width - either "long" or "short"
• uncommon - whether even uncommon timezone abbreviations should be used
• locale - the Locale object, or a locale string

Returns: unicode

the timezone display name

Return a date formatted according to the given pattern.

>>> d = date(2007, 04, 01)
>>> format_date(d, locale='en_US')
u'Apr 1, 2007'
>>> format_date(d, format='full', locale='de_DE')
u'Sonntag, 1. April 2007'

If you don't want to use the locale default formats, you can specify a custom date pattern:

>>> format_date(d, "EEE, MMM d, ''yy", locale='en')
u"Sun, Apr 1, '07"

Parameters:

• date - the date or datetime object; if None, the current date is used
• format - one of "full", "long", "medium", or "short", or a custom date/time pattern
• locale - a Locale object or a locale identifier

Returns: unicode

Return a date formatted according to the given pattern.

>>> dt = datetime(2007, 04, 01, 15, 30)
>>> format_datetime(dt, locale='en_US')
u'Apr 1, 2007 3:30:00 PM'

For any pattern requiring the display of the time-zone, the third-party pytz package is needed to explicitly specify the time-zone:

>>> from pytz import timezone
>>> format_datetime(dt, 'full', tzinfo=timezone('Europe/Paris'),
...                 locale='fr_FR')
u'dimanche 1 avril 2007 17:30:00 HEC'
>>> format_datetime(dt, "yyyy.MM.dd G 'at' HH:mm:ss zzz",
...                 tzinfo=timezone('US/Eastern'), locale='en')
u'2007.04.01 AD at 11:30:00 EDT'

Parameters:

• datetime - the datetime object; if None, the current date and time is used
• format - one of "full", "long", "medium", or "short", or a custom date/time pattern
• tzinfo - the timezone to apply to the time for display
• locale - a Locale object or a locale identifier

Returns: unicode

Return a time formatted according to the given pattern.

>>> t = time(15, 30)
>>> format_time(t, locale='en_US')
u'3:30:00 PM'
>>> format_time(t, format='short', locale='de_DE')
u'15:30'

If you don't want to use the locale default formats, you can specify a custom time pattern:

>>> format_time(t, "hh 'o''clock' a", locale='en')
u"03 o'clock PM"

For any pattern requiring the display of the time-zone, the third-party pytz package is needed to explicitly specify the time-zone:

>>> from pytz import timezone
>>> t = datetime(2007, 4, 1, 15, 30)
>>> tzinfo = timezone('Europe/Paris')
>>> t = tzinfo.localize(t)
>>> format_time(t, format='full', tzinfo=tzinfo, locale='fr_FR')
u'15:30:00 HEC'
>>> format_time(t, "hh 'o''clock' a, zzzz", tzinfo=timezone('US/Eastern'),
...             locale='en')
u"09 o'clock AM, Eastern Daylight Time"

As that example shows, when this function gets passed a datetime.datetime value, the actual time in the formatted string is adjusted to the timezone specified by the tzinfo parameter. If the datetime is "naive" (i.e. it has no associated timezone information), it is assumed to be in UTC.

These timezone calculations are not performed if the value is of type datetime.time, as without date information there's no way to determine what a given time would translate to in a different timezone without information about whether daylight savings time is in effect or not. This means that time values are left as-is, and the value of the tzinfo parameter is only used to display the timezone name if needed:

>>> t = time(15, 30)
>>> format_time(t, format='full', tzinfo=timezone('Europe/Paris'),
...             locale='fr_FR')
u'15:30:00 HEC'
>>> format_time(t, format='full', tzinfo=timezone('US/Eastern'),
...             locale='en_US')
u'3:30:00 PM ET'

Parameters:

• time - the time or datetime object; if None, the current time in UTC is used
• format - one of "full", "long", "medium", or "short", or a custom date/time pattern
• tzinfo - the time-zone to apply to the time for display
• locale - a Locale object or a locale identifier

Returns: unicode

Parse a date from a string.

This function uses the date format for the locale as a hint to determine the order in which the date fields appear in the string.

>>> parse_date('4/1/04', locale='en_US')
datetime.date(2004, 4, 1)
>>> parse_date('01.04.2004', locale='de_DE')
datetime.date(2004, 4, 1)

Parameters:

• string - the string containing the date
• locale - a Locale object or a locale identifier

Returns: date

the parsed date

Parse a date and time from a string.

This function uses the date and time formats for the locale as a hint to determine the order in which the time fields appear in the string.

Parameters:

• string - the string containing the date and time
• locale - a Locale object or a locale identifier

Returns: datetime

the parsed date/time

Parse a time from a string.

This function uses the time format for the locale as a hint to determine the order in which the time fields appear in the string.

>>> parse_time('15:30:00', locale='en_US')
datetime.time(15, 30)

Parameters:

• string - the string containing the time
• locale - a Locale object or a locale identifier

Returns: time

the parsed time