Python's datetime.min with time zone (Python 3.7)

Question

If I do:

>>> datetime.max.astimezone(pytz.UTC)
datetime.datetime(9999, 12, 31, 23, 59, 59, 999999, tzinfo=<UTC>)
>>> datetime.min.astimezone(pytz.UTC)
ValueError: year 0 is out of range

However:

datetime.min.replace(tzinfo=pytz.UTC)
datetime.datetime(1, 1, 1, 0, 0, tzinfo=<UTC>)

From this and this answers, it seems a conversion issue.

Is this a bug or an intended behaviour, and why?

Why would you have to use astimezone? if you just need datetime.min / .max as a placeholder as aware datetime, replace does the trick. Python's naive datetime resembling something like local time brings some complications with it, this is one of them IIUC. One could argue about if this was a good design decision or not. But a bug existing still in 3.11 suggests there's no easy solution on the way. — FObersteiner
– FObersteiner, Commented Sep 8, 2023 at 13:40
This question is similar to: Convert datetime.min into offset aware datetime. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. — Pat Myron
– Pat Myron, Commented Aug 3 at 22:41

C. Claudio · Accepted Answer · 2023-09-08 12:49:10Z

2

It is a bug, still open in Python 3.8: https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/75395

answered Sep 8, 2023 at 12:49

C. Claudio

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2 Comments

FObersteiner Over a year ago

the comments on this issue still don't answer your question why I think ;-)

Arnaud P Over a year ago

Bug still open in python 3.12.4 😭

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