[issue25428] Have `datetime` understand integer arguments for timezones

[leewz]

leewz added the comment:

Thanks. Will visit them.

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[issue25428] Have `datetime` understand integer arguments for timezones

[leewz]

New submission from leewz:

Current: If I want to create a datetime object with a particular timezone 
offset, I have to do this:

import datetime
mytime = datetime.datetime(2015, 10, 16, 9, 13, 0, 
tzinfo=datetime.timezone(datetime.timedelta(hours=-7)))

Or with imports:

from datetime import datetime, timezone, timedelta
mytime = datetime(2015, 10, 16, 9, 13, 0, 
tzinfo=timezone(timedelta(hours=-7)))

That's two extra imports and two extra objects created.


Requested way:
mytime = datetime(2015, 10, 16, 9, 13, 0, tzinfo=-7)
# mytime.tzinfo == -7

Or if someone doesn't like the `tzinfo` keyword:
mytime = datetime(2015, 10, 16, 9, 13, 0, tzhours=-7)
# mytime.tzinfo == timezone(timedelta(-7))


For timezones, hours are the normal unit of time. At least, I think about time 
zones in hours, and I don't know who would think about them in minutes. There 
are half-hour offsets, so floats make sense to have.

Imagine you have about a year of experience dabbling in Python, and you're 
trying to do a relatively simple task, like reading PDT times and converting 
them to local time. You would go to the datetime docs, see that you need to 
pass in a tzinfo object. You look that up, and run into this:
"""tzinfo is an abstract base class, meaning that this class should not be 
instantiated directly. You need to derive a concrete subclass, and (at least) 
supply implementations of the standard tzinfo methods needed by the datetime 
methods you use."""

Well, great. If you want to convert times, you'll have to subclass an abstract 
base class, and implement five methods. You'd probably have to read the whole 
docs for this class, too. (The docs for tzinfo take nine Page Downs for me to 
scroll past.)

If you're not frightened off by the first two sentences, you'll see that 
there's the concrete subclass `datetime.timezone`. We're two levels down, now. 
Going there, you'll see that you need to pass in a timedelta object. Three 
levels. You need to learn about three classes just to specify an hour offset.

Timezones are something that many non-programmers understand, and the rules are 
pretty simple (barring DST, but the library doesn't really deal with it 
anyway). Ideally, it should be simple to do simple things.


PS: There seems to be unnecessary inconsistency with `.astimezone`, 
`fromtimestamp`, and `now` taking a `tz` kwarg rather than a `tzinfo` kwarg.

--
assignee: docs@python
components: Documentation, Library (Lib)
messages: 253111
nosy: docs@python, leewz
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Have `datetime` understand integer arguments for timezones
type: enhancement
versions: Python 3.5, Python 3.6

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[issue25428] Have `datetime` understand integer arguments for timezones

[Ezio Melotti]

Changes by Ezio Melotti :


--
nosy: +belopolsky, lemburg
versions:  -Python 3.5

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[issue25428] Have `datetime` understand integer arguments for timezones

[R. David Murray]

R. David Murray added the comment:

timezone is relatively new.  Work is in progress to add better timezone support 
to datetime, but it is a complicated subject and may or may not make it into 
3.6.  In any case I think it is too soon to talk about this kind of API change, 
before the other work gets farther along.  That's probably also true for 
changes to the docs, although a concrete proposal there might have some chance.

There's a mailing list for talking specifically about datetime issues, you 
might want to post there (see mail.python.org, datetime-sig).

--
nosy: +r.david.murray
resolution:  -> later
stage:  -> resolved
status: open -> closed

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