![\"Select_report_to_change___Django_site_admin\"](\"https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/9599/109755937-c4fd1600-7b9b-11eb-9c65-f84bbb84ed21.png\")
\n\n## Showing UTC too\n\nI decided I'd like to see the UTC time too, just to help me truly understand what had been stored. I did that by adding the following method to my Django model class:\n\n```python\n# Earlier\nfrom django.utils import dateformat\nimport pytz\n\n# Added to the model class:\n\n def created_at_utc(self):\n tz = pytz.UTC\n created_at_utc = timezone.localtime(self.created_at, tz)\n return (\n dateformat.format(created_at_utc, \"jS M Y fA e\")\n )\n```\nThen I added `created_at_utc` to both the `list_filter` and the `readonly_fields` tuples in the admin configuration for that model. This caused it to show up in the list view and also as a read-only field at the bottom of the edit view.\n\n![\"Change_report___Django_site_admin\"](\"https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/9599/109756379-afd4b700-7b9c-11eb-8bc4-acb168c53943.png\")
\n\nNote that I'm calling `dateformat.format()` in the method and returning a string - this ensures Django's automatic formatting doesn't get the chance to convert it back to PST again.", "html": "Django supports storing dates in a database as UTC but displaying them in some other timezone - which is good. But... by default datetimes are shown in the Django admin interface without any clue as to what timezone they are being displayed in.
\nThis is really confusing. A time may be stored as UTC in the database but in the admin interface it's displaying in PST, without any visual indication as to what is going on.
\nI found a pattern today for improving this. You can use django.conf.locale.en.formats to specify a custom date format for a specific locale (thanks, Stack Overflow). Then you can use the e date format option to include a string indicating the timezone that is being displayed, as documented here.
In settings.py do this:
from django.conf.locale.en import formats as en_formats\n\nen_formats.DATETIME_FORMAT = \"jS M Y fA e\"I added a middleware to force the displayed timezone for every page on my site to America/Los_Angeles like so:
from django.utils import timezone\nimport pytz\n\nclass TimezoneMiddleware:\n def __init__(self, get_response):\n self.get_response = get_response\n\n def __call__(self, request):\n timezone.activate(pytz.timezone(\"America/Los_Angeles\"))\n return self.get_response(request)I put this in a file called core/timezone_middleware.py and added it to my MIDDLEWARE setting in settings.py like so:
MIDDLEWARE = [\n # ...\n \"core.timezone_middleware.TimezoneMiddleware\",\n]\nNow datetimes show up in my admin interface looking like this, with a PST suffix:
I decided I'd like to see the UTC time too, just to help me truly understand what had been stored. I did that by adding the following method to my Django model class:
\n# Earlier\nfrom django.utils import dateformat\nimport pytz\n\n# Added to the model class:\n\n def created_at_utc(self):\n tz = pytz.UTC\n created_at_utc = timezone.localtime(self.created_at, tz)\n return (\n dateformat.format(created_at_utc, \"jS M Y fA e\")\n )Then I added created_at_utc to both the list_filter and the readonly_fields tuples in the admin configuration for that model. This caused it to show up in the list view and also as a read-only field at the bottom of the edit view.
Note that I'm calling dateformat.format() in the method and returning a string - this ensures Django's automatic formatting doesn't get the chance to convert it back to PST again.