Python string to Django timezone (aware datetime)

Question

TL;DR;

How to convert 2016-01-01 to Django timezone?

Full version:

I receive a query string parameter from a form and I wanna get that string and use it as a datetime filter in Django. The problem is that when I convert the string to a datetime, it's not making an aware datetime and so I lose a few hours due to timezone different. Maybe I'm losing myself in the formatting, but I'm not being able to do it.

I have pytz, I have USE_TZ = True in my settings as well.

example:

from datetime import date
# Example from what I receive as GET querystring parameter
start_date, end_date = '15-01-2016', '16-01-2016'
DATE_FORMAT = '%Y-%m-%d'
start_date = start_date.split('-')
start_date = date(int(start_date[2]), int(start_date[1]), int(start_date[0]))
sd_filter = start_date.strftime(DATE_FORMAT)

end_date = end_date.split('-')
end_date = date(int(end_date[2]), int(end_date[1]), int(end_date[0]))
ed_filter = end_date.strftime(DATE_FORMAT)

#query
my_list = MyModel.objects.filter(created_at__range=(sd_filter, ed_filter))

the problem lies in the filter. I'm losing a few hours due to timezone from Django settings.

UPDATE: I don't need to convert a datetime.now() to my time. I need to convert a string to datetime.

Answer 1

I know this is old but maybe will be helpful since I got into this situation as well:

What about using make_aware() ?

from datetime import datetime
from django.utils.timezone import make_aware

date = '22-05-2018'
aware = make_aware(datetime.strptime(date, '%d-%m-%Y'))

This will use the currently active timezone (activated by timezone.activate). If no timezone is activated explicitly, it would use the default timezone -- TIME_ZONE specified in settings.py.