Use Python to find out if a timezone currently in daylight savings time [duplicate]

Question

We have a server that runs on GMT time. I need to write a Python script that determines if it's currently (at this very second) Daylight Savings Time (DST) in Los Angeles, CA. How can I accomplish this? I took a look at pytz and time, but I can't figure it out. I realize that I could create some logic such as comparing the current time in LA to GMT time, but it would be a lot cleaner if I could use a standard library instead.

Thanks

Edit: Here's some sample code of me setting up the timezone:

from pytz import timezone import pytz from datetime import datetime, timedelta  tz = timezone('America/Los_Angeles') // Instantiate a datetime object using tz?  

Edit: Here's a snippet of code that will work. It's not elegant, which is why I'm asking if there's a library or something that is made for this. Maybe like a is_dst() function.

utc = timezone("UTC") now = utc.localize(datetime.utcnow()) los_angeles_tz = timezone('America/Los_Angeles') los_angeles_time = now.astimezone(los_angeles_tz)  delta = los_angeles_time.utcoffset() dstDelta = timedelta(hours=-8)  is_dst = (delta == dstDelta) 

Answer 1

import pytz from datetime import datetime, timedelta  def is_dst(zonename):     tz = pytz.timezone(zonename)     now = pytz.utc.localize(datetime.utcnow())     return now.astimezone(tz).dst() != timedelta(0) 

Usage:

>>> is_dst("America/Los_Angeles") False  >>> is_dst("America/Sao_Paulo") True 

Answer 2

from datetime import datetime import pytz  isdst_now_in = lambda zonename: bool(datetime.now(pytz.timezone(zonename)).dst()) 

Example:

>>> isdst_now_in("America/Los_Angeles") # 2014-10-27 12:32:07 PDT-0700 True >>> isdst_now_in("Australia/Melbourne") # 2014-10-28 06:32:07 AEDT+1100 True 

Here's stdlib-only version on Unix using time.tzset() function:

import os import time from contextlib import contextmanager  @contextmanager def local_timezone(zonename):     #NOTE: it manipulates global state     oldname = os.environ.get('TZ')     try:         os.environ['TZ'] = zonename         time.tzset()         yield     finally:         if oldname is None:            del os.environ['TZ']         else:            os.environ['TZ'] = oldname         time.tzset()  def time_isdst_now_in(zonename):     with local_timezone(zonename):          return time.localtime().tm_isdst > 0 

The usage is the same:

>>> time_isdst_now_in('Europe/London') # 2014-04-17 18:42:11 BST+0100 True 

Note: time.daylight is not used due to issues in some edge cases.