Problem in converting timestamp string in Python

Question

I have a dataset with timestamps in the format:

`'4/17/2020 5:55:00 AM'`

Please note there are 2 spaces between YYYY and HH fields. The original time is in 'US/Eastern' timezone. I am trying to convert it to IST (Indian Standard Time). This should be 'Asia/Kolkata' from pytz

The code below is not working, and I have tried multiple versions of it. Even conversion to UTC is failing. The code block is:

`
est_ts = '4/17/2020 5:55:00 AM'
est = pytz.timezone('US/Eastern')
ist = pytz.timezone('Asia/Kolkata')
print(dt.datetime.strptime(est_ts, '%m/%d/%Y  %I:%M:%S %p').astimezone(ist).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
`

This gives an output of:

`2020-04-17 07:25:00`

While the correct output should be:

`2020-04-17 15:25:00`

What is wrong with this code? Much appreciated.

the localize() method is the way to go, see drec4s answer below. See here on why you should also normalize(). — FObersteiner
– FObersteiner, Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 13:47

drec4s · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-18 13:40:24Z

3

You first need to localize the original timestamp, so that you can normalize to the desired location:

import datetime as dt
import pytz

est_ts = '4/17/2020 5:55:00 AM'
est = pytz.timezone('US/Eastern')
ist = pytz.timezone('Asia/Kolkata')

est_dt = est.localize(dt.datetime.strptime(est_ts, '%m/%d/%Y  %I:%M:%S %p'))
ist_dt = ist.normalize(est_dt.astimezone(ist))

print(ist_dt.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
#2020-04-17 15:25:00

answered Apr 18, 2020 at 13:40

drec4s

8,1178 gold badges35 silver badges56 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Problem in converting timestamp string in Python

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related