Datetime's timestamp function not matching expected UNIX time

Question

The following

import datetime as dt

dt.datetime(2019, 7, 21).timestamp()

returns

1563663600.0 .

However, if I look on https://www.unixtimeconverter.io/list/2019/july, then I see that the expected Unix time for this date is 1563667200.

Why the discrepancy?

what's your local timezone? 1563667200 is the UTC timestamp. — Vamsi Prabhala
– Vamsi Prabhala, Commented Jul 22, 2019 at 14:37
I was looking for the UTC timestamp. I didn't specify any local timezone when running .timestamp() — EuRBamarth
– EuRBamarth, Commented Jul 22, 2019 at 14:39

ShadowRanger · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-22 14:43:25Z

2

datetime doesn't assume UTC by default, so you need to specify it.

dt.datetime(2019, 7, 21, tzinfo=dt.timezone.utc).timestamp()

1563667200

edited Jul 22, 2019 at 14:43

ShadowRanger

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answered Jul 22, 2019 at 14:42

EuRBamarth

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1 Comment

ShadowRanger Over a year ago

This behavior/solution is specifically documented for the timestamp method too: "Note: There is no method to obtain the POSIX timestamp directly from a naive datetime instance representing UTC time. If your application uses this convention and your system timezone is not set to UTC, you can obtain the POSIX timestamp by supplying tzinfo=timezone.utc" (followed by code sample)

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