Python pass tzinfo to naive datetime without pytz

Question

I've been struggling for way too long on dates/timezones in Python and was thinking someone could give me a hand here.

Basically I want to do a conversion in UTC and taking into account DST changes.

I've created the following tzinfo class from one of the Python tutorials (not 100% accurate I know but it doesn't need to):

from datetime import tzinfo, timedelta, datetime

ZERO = timedelta(0)
HOUR = timedelta(hours=1)

def first_sunday_on_or_after(dt):
    days_to_go = 6 - dt.weekday()
    if days_to_go:
        dt += timedelta(days_to_go)
    return dt

DSTSTART_2007 = datetime(1, 3, 8, 2)
DSTEND_2007 = datetime(1, 11, 1, 1)
DSTSTART_1987_2006 = datetime(1, 4, 1, 2)
DSTEND_1987_2006 = datetime(1, 10, 25, 1)
DSTSTART_1967_1986 = datetime(1, 4, 24, 2)
DSTEND_1967_1986 = DSTEND_1987_2006

class USTimeZone(tzinfo):

    def __init__(self, hours, reprname, stdname, dstname):
        self.stdoffset = timedelta(hours=hours)
        self.reprname = reprname
        self.stdname = stdname
        self.dstname = dstname

    def __repr__(self):
        return self.reprname

    def tzname(self, dt):
        if self.dst(dt):
            return self.dstname
        else:
            return self.stdname

    def utcoffset(self, dt):
        return self.stdoffset + self.dst(dt)

    def dst(self, dt):
        if dt is None or dt.tzinfo is None:
            # An exception may be sensible here, in one or both cases.
            # It depends on how you want to treat them.  The default
            # fromutc() implementation (called by the default astimezone()
            # implementation) passes a datetime with dt.tzinfo is self.
            return ZERO
        assert dt.tzinfo is self

        # Find start and end times for US DST. For years before 1967, return
        # ZERO for no DST.
        if 2006 < dt.year:
            dststart, dstend = DSTSTART_2007, DSTEND_2007
        elif 1986 < dt.year < 2007:
            dststart, dstend = DSTSTART_1987_2006, DSTEND_1987_2006
        elif 1966 < dt.year < 1987:
            dststart, dstend = DSTSTART_1967_1986, DSTEND_1967_1986
        else:
            return ZERO

        start = first_sunday_on_or_after(dststart.replace(year=dt.year))
        end = first_sunday_on_or_after(dstend.replace(year=dt.year))

        # Can't compare naive to aware objects, so strip the timezone from
        # dt first.
        if start <= dt.replace(tzinfo=None) < end:
            return HOUR
        else:
            return ZERO

On the other side I have an arbitrary date object in EST, and I want to know the number of hours they differ by taking into account DST.

I've tried something like this:

>>> Eastern = ustimezone.USTimeZone(-5, "Eastern",  "EST", "EDT")
>>> x = datetime.date.today() # I actually get an arbitrary date but this is for the example
>>> x_dt = datetime.datetime.combine(x, datetime.time())
>>> x_dt_tz = x_dt.astimezone(Eastern)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: astimezone() cannot be applied to a naive datetime

I've seen several posts who tell to use localize from the pytz module, but unfortunately I am not able to use additional modules, so impossible to use pyzt

Does anyone know how I can get this naive datetime into a timezoned object without using pytz?

Answer 1

Use x_dt.replace(tzinfo=Eastern) (found from this Google Groups thread).

x_dt.replace(tzinfo=Eastern).utcoffset() returns datetime.timedelta(-1, 72000) which corresponds to -4 hours! (from Question's comment)

Answer 2

For what it's worth, the answer @skyl provided is more-or-less equivalent to what pytz does.

Here is the relevant pytz source. It just calls replace on the datetime object with the tzinfo kwarg:

def localize(self, dt, is_dst=False):
    '''Convert naive time to local time'''
    if dt.tzinfo is not None:
        raise ValueError('Not naive datetime (tzinfo is already set)')
    return dt.replace(tzinfo=self)