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POHow do I get the visitor's current timezone then convert timezone.now() to string of the local time in Django 1.4?
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copied!<p>I understand that the best practice now with Django 1.4 is to store all <code>datetime</code> in UTC and I agree with that. I also understand that all timezone conversation should be done in the template level like this:</p> <pre><code>{% load tz %} {% timezone "Europe/Paris" %} Paris time: {{ value }} {% endtimezone %} </code></pre> <p>However, I need to convert the UTC time to the <code>request</code>'s local time all in Python. I can't use the template tags since I am returning the string in JSON using Ajax (more specifically <a href="http://www.dajaxproject.com/" rel="noreferrer">Dajaxice</a>).</p> <p>Currently this is my code <code>ajax.py</code>:</p> <pre><code># checked is from the checkbox's this.value (Javascript). datetime = timezone.now() if checked else None $ order_pk is sent to the Ajax function. order = Order.objects.get(pk=order_pk) order.time = datetime order.save() return simplejson.dumps({ 'error': False, 'datetime': dateformat.format(datetime, 'F j, Y, P') if checked else 'None' }) </code></pre> <p>So even if the current time is <code>April 14, 2012, 5:52 p.m.</code> in EST time (my local timezone), the JSON response will return <code>April 14, 2012, 9:52 p.m</code>, because that is the UTC time.</p> <p>Also I noticed that Django stores a template variable called <code>TIME_ZONE</code> for each request (not actually part of the <code>request</code> variable), so since my is <code>America/New_York</code>, I'm assuming that Django can figure out each visitor's own local timezone (based on HTTP header)?</p> <p>Anyway, so my question is two-fold:</p> <ol> <li>How do I get the visitor's local timezone in my <code>ajax.py</code>? (Probably pass it as a string argument like <code>{{ TIME_ZONE }}</code>)</li> <li>With the visitor's local timezone, how to convert the UTC <code>timezone.now()</code> to the local timezone and output as a string using Django's <code>dateformat</code>?</li> </ol> <p><strong>EDIT:</strong> for @agf</p> <p><code>timezone.now()</code> gives the UTC time when <code>USE_TZ = True</code>:</p> <pre><code># From django.utils.timezone def now(): """ Returns an aware or naive datetime.datetime, depending on settings.USE_TZ. """ if settings.USE_TZ: # timeit shows that datetime.now(tz=utc) is 24% slower return datetime.utcnow().replace(tzinfo=utc) else: return datetime.now() </code></pre> <p>Is there anyway to convert a <code>datetime</code> to something other than UTC? For example, can I do something like <code>current_time = timezone.now()</code>, then <code>current_time.replace(tzinfo=est)</code> (EST = Eastern Standard Time)?</p>

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