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Returns the current UTC datetime with timezone information.

Purpose

This function provides a convenient way to get the current date and time in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) with timezone awareness. It's useful for timestamping events, logging, or any operation requiring consistent timezone-aware datetime objects. Using UTC ensures consistency across different timezones and avoids ambiguity in datetime comparisons and storage.

Source Code

def now():
    return datetime.datetime.now(datetime.timezone.utc)

Return Value

Returns a datetime.datetime object representing the current moment in UTC timezone. The returned object is timezone-aware (has tzinfo set to datetime.timezone.utc), which makes it suitable for timezone-aware datetime operations and comparisons. The datetime includes year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and microsecond precision.

Dependencies

• datetime

Required Imports

import datetime

Usage Example

import datetime

def now():
    return datetime.datetime.now(datetime.timezone.utc)

# Get current UTC time
current_time = now()
print(f"Current UTC time: {current_time}")
print(f"ISO format: {current_time.isoformat()}")
print(f"Timezone: {current_time.tzinfo}")

# Use for timestamping
event_timestamp = now()
print(f"Event occurred at: {event_timestamp}")

# Compare with another datetime
later_time = now()
time_difference = later_time - event_timestamp
print(f"Time elapsed: {time_difference.total_seconds()} seconds")

Best Practices

• Always use timezone-aware datetimes when working with timestamps across different timezones to avoid ambiguity
• UTC is the recommended timezone for storing timestamps in databases and logs as it avoids daylight saving time complications
• When displaying times to users, convert from UTC to their local timezone rather than storing times in local timezones
• This function returns a new datetime object on each call, so cache the result if you need to use the same timestamp multiple times in a single operation
• For high-precision timing or performance measurements, consider using time.perf_counter() instead

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