Introduction to Pytz - Python

Pytz is a Python library that provides timezone database and is widely used for working with different timezones in Python applications. It is based on the Olson timezone database and is compatible with Python 2 and 3.

Features

• Easy to install and use
• Supports timezone localization and manipulation
• Handles daylight saving time gaps and overlaps
• Provides timezone database with over 500 regions.

Installation

To install Pytz, you can use pip:

pip install pytz

Usage

To use Pytz, you first need to import the library:

import pytz

Timezone localizations

To localize a naive datetime object to a specific timezone, you can use the timezone function:

import datetime
from pytz import timezone

d = datetime.datetime(2021, 10, 1, 12, 0, 0)
tz = timezone('US/Pacific')
localized_date = tz.localize(d)

print(localized_date)
# Output: 2021-10-01 12:00:00-07:00

Timezone manipulation

To convert a timezone-aware datetime object to another timezone, you can use the astimezone method:

import datetime
from pytz import timezone

d = datetime.datetime(2021, 10, 1, 12, 0, 0, tzinfo=pytz.utc)
new_tz = timezone('US/Pacific')
converted_date = d.astimezone(new_tz)

print(converted_date)
# Output: 2021-10-01 05:00:00-07:00

Timezone database

Pytz provides timezone database with over 500 regions. To access the database, you can use the all_timezones or common_timezones function:

import pytz

all_timezones = pytz.all_timezones
common_timezones = pytz.common_timezones

print(all_timezones[:10])
# Output: ['Africa/Abidjan', 'Africa/Accra', 'Africa/Addis_Ababa', 'Africa/Algiers', 'Africa/Asmara', 'Africa/Asmera', 'Africa/Bamako', 'Africa/Bangui', 'Africa/Banjul', 'Africa/Bissau']

print(common_timezones[:10])
# Output: ['Africa/Abidjan', 'Africa/Accra', 'Africa/Addis_Ababa', 'Africa/Algiers', 'Africa/Asmara', 'Africa/Bamako', 'Africa/Bangui', 'Africa/Banjul', 'Africa/Bissau', 'Africa/Blantyre']

Conclusion

In summary, Pytz is a powerful Python library for timezone localization and manipulation. With its timezone database and easy-to-use API, it makes working with timezones in Python applications a breeze.