5

Okay simple question (I think).

I have a DateTime field (auto_add_now) and when output to a template 

{{ edited|date:"DATETIME_FORMAT" }}

I get the expected result of "Sept. 16, 2012, 12:01 p.m."

But unfortunately things are slightly more complicated since I am using Backbone.js and need to pass the datetime with JSON, and since it is only used for display purposes I decided to pass it as a nice locale formatted string. So I dug into the code and found what the template tag uses and this is what I setup.

from django.utils.formats import date_format
return {
    'created': date_format(self.created, 'DATETIME_FORMAT'),
}

But that ends up with this "Sept. 16, 2012, 5:01 p.m."

I have a feeling it has to do with the following on the template tag

@register.filter(expects_localtime=True, is_safe=False)

I also tried this but ended up with the same results

from django.utils import timezone
tz = timezone.get_current_timezone()
logger.info(tz)
logger.info(self.edited)
logger.info(format(self.edited, 'DATETIME_FORMAT'))
logger.info(self.edited.replace(tzinfo=tz))
logger.info(format(self.edited.replace(tzinfo=tz), 'DATETIME_FORMAT'))

Which gave me this

INFO: America/Chicago
INFO: 2012-09-16 17:01:52.921276+00:00
INFO: Sept. 16, 2012, 5:01 p.m.
INFO: 2012-09-16 17:01:52.921276-06:00
INFO: Sept. 16, 2012, 5:01 p.m.

So yeah, I must be missing something, and I have been up and down the django documentation and cannot find anything that could point me to what I am doing wrong. Thanks for any help.

byoungb
  • 1,771
  • 20
  • 31

2 Answers2

10

I figured it out. And sadly it was in the Django Timezones documentation that I thought I had exhausted. Localize Usage timezone.localtime()

from django.utils.formats import date_format
from django.utils import timezone
date_format(timezone.localtime(page.created), 'DATETIME_FORMAT')
byoungb
  • 1,771
  • 20
  • 31
1

Maybe the following will help you.

>>> obj = MyModel.objects.get(...)
>>> data = {"date_format": obj.edited}
>>> from django.core.serializers.json import DjangoJSONEncoder
>>> data = json.dumps(data, cls=DjangoJSONEncoder)
>>> data
'{"date_format": "2012-09-16T21:45:46Z"}'

Send the json formatted data from your view:

E.g return HttpResponse(data, mimetype='application/json').

And then at your client side code you can convert the date_format to the local timezone with: (Assuming response is the JSON parsed object)

var d = new Date(Date.parse(response.date_format));
// Sun Sep 16 2012 22:45:46 GMT+0100 (BST)
thikonom
  • 4,219
  • 3
  • 26
  • 30
  • I had thought of this but didn't want to because this would complicate my client side code, currently the dates are just used for display purposes and are displayed automatically with backbone.js/underscore.js templates along with half a dozen other string fields and coding an conditional to handle dates seems like extra work. (if can't find a better solution I will accept this answer because it may very well be the only way to do it) – byoungb Sep 18 '12 at 23:06