Better python datetime display?

Question

I'm using babel and pytz to get the time zones. However, for most of America, it maps to something not as helpful in a dropdown box:

"America/New_York" displays "Eastern Time", "America/Nipigon" also displays "Eastern Time".

Is there some way to do this conversion to add city info? other timezones seems okay, like "Asia/Jakarta" converts to "Indonesia (Jakarta) Time"

Answer 1

Works for me with Babel 0.9.5 and pytz 2010b.

py.tz

#!/usr/bin/env python

import pytz
import babel.dates

tz = pytz.timezone('America/New_York')
print babel.dates.get_timezone_location(tz)

output

$ python tz.py 
United States (New York) Time

How are you running it? What versions?

---

If you are stuck with the versions you have, then why not only use the Continent/City entries?

Here's a starting point for you. It determines both the continent and the city, so you can format it however you want.

tzs.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

import pytz
import babel.dates
import re

country_timezones = {}
for (country, tzlist) in pytz.country_timezones.iteritems():
    country_name = pytz.country_names[country]
    cities = []
    for timezone in tzlist:
        # remove continent
        city = re.sub(r'^[^/]*/', r'', timezone)
        # Argentina has an extra "Argentina/" on my system (pytz 2010b)
        city = re.sub(country_name + '/', '', city)
        # Indiana and North Dakota have different rules by country
        # change Indiana/Location to Location, Indiana
        city = re.sub(r'^([^/]*)/(.*)', r'\2, \1', city)
        # change underscores to spaces
        city = re.sub(r'_', r' ', city)
        cities.append(city)  
    country_timezones[country_name] = cities

for country in sorted(country_timezones):
    print country
    for city in sorted(country_timezones[country]):
        print "\t%s" % (city)

output

Aaland Islands
        Mariehamn
Afghanistan
        Kabul
...
Indonesia
        Jakarta
        Jayapura
        Makassar
        Pontianak
...
United States
        Adak
        Anchorage
        Boise
        Center, North Dakota
        Chicago
        Denver
        Detroit