How to Convert a UTC Datetime String to Local Time in Python?

Converting UTC Datetime String to Local Datetime

Converting UTC Time to Local Time Zone

In your scenario, you have a UTC datetime string stored in BigTable that you need to convert to a Python datetime object in the user's local time zone.

Using the python-dateutil library, you can easily accomplish this conversion:

from dateutil import tz

utc_string = "2011-01-21 02:37:21"
utc_datetime = datetime.strptime(utc_string, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

# Assuming EST -5 time zone
local_zone = tz.gettz('America/New_York')

# Convert UTC datetime to local time
local_datetime = utc_datetime.astimezone(local_zone)

Storing Time Zone Information

As for storing time zone information, a common approach is to use the Olson database (tzinfo). This database provides a canonical representation of time zone rules.

You can then specify a time zone by its unique identifier, such as "America/New_York" or "-5". Python's tzinfo library offers methods to get information about different time zones and create instances of timezone objects for use in datetime comparisons.

Additional Notes

• The python-dateutil library also includes a helper method called fromtimestamp that can take a timestamp and return a timezone-aware datetime object.
• You can use the tzlocal package to automatically detect the system's current time zone.

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