Setting datetime object in a json using python

Question

I want to set a datetime object in json body and here is what I have been doing:

#createDate is fetched from a json output of some other API  
createDate = document['createDate']

#Set in a json body
myjson = {}
myjson['date'] = dateparser.parse(createDate).astimezone(tz.tzutc())

But I get

TypeError: datetime.datetime(2014, 11, 13, 16, 23, 19, tzinfo=tzutc()) is not JSON serializable.

How to get over this?

Answer 1

>>> import pytz
>>> from pytz import timezone
>>> utc=pytz.utc
>>> newdate=datetime.strptime(createDate, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S-05:00")
>>> servertz = timezone("UTC")
>>> myJson={}
>>> myJson['date'] = servertz.localize(newdate).isoformat
>>> json.dumps(myJson)

Try this. The database might expecting datetime field and this will give datetime object.

Answer 2

The error is quite explicit, a datetime object is indeed not json serializable. You have two options. The first one, more complex, is to write your own serializer for datetime object. The second option, probably easier, is to simply convert your datetime object to a string. Like this:

createDate = document['createDate']
myjson = {}
myjson['date'] = dateparser.parse(createDate).astimezone(tz.tzutc()).isoformat()