Is this the correct way to convert a UTC datetime string into localtime?

Question

Is this the correct way to convert a UTC string into local time allowing for daylight savings? It looks ok to me but you never know :)

import time
UTC_STRING = "2010-03-25 02:00:00"
stamp = time.mktime(time.strptime(UTC_STRING,"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"))
stamp -= time.timezone
now   = time.localtime()
if now[8] == 1:
    stamp += 60*60
elif now[8] == -1:
    stamp -= 60*60
print 'UTC: ', time.gmtime(stamp)
print 'Local: ', time.localtime(stamp)

--- Results from New Zealand (GMT+12 dst=1) ---

UTC:  (2010, 3, 25, 2, 0, 0, 3, 84, 0)
Local:  (2010, 3, 25, 15, 0, 0, 3, 84, 1)

Answer 1

timezone related calculations are not trivial and there are already good libraries available e.g. use pytz, using that you will be able to convert from any timezone to any other timezone with confidence. usage is as simple as this

>>> warsaw = pytz.timezone('Europe/Warsaw')
>>> loc_dt1 = warsaw.localize(datetime(1915, 8, 4, 23, 59, 59), is_dst=False)