How django time zone works with model.field's auto_now_add

Question

I suppose time zone management was added to Django 1.4, so the problem is quite new.

I used a simple model

class Sample(models.Model):     ...     date_generated = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add = True) 

When I try to retrieve a newly created record its fails.

min_datetime = datetime.now() - timedelta(seconds = 300) sample = Sample.objects.get(date_generated__gte = min_datetime) 

and the server issues a warning.

DateTimeField received a naive DateTime (2012-06-29 15:02:15.074000) while time zone support is active. 

I figured out two solutions to that problem.

1. Disable time zone management in settings.py

    USE_TZ = False  

but this is not always desirable. 2. changing

    date_generated = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add = True)  

to

    date_generated = models.DateTimeField(default=datetime.now())  

is the solution that keeps time zone management working

Answer 1

Use timezone utils of django

from django.utils import timezone date_generated = models.DateTimeField(default=timezone.now)