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pythonepoch

How to Create Negative Epoch Value in python

I am trying to create epoch values for a date field using Python. It works great for all the dates after '1970-01-01'. Any date before 1970 doesn't work.

Here is the code I am using:

int(time.mktime(time.strptime('1969-01-01', '%Y-%m-%d'))) - time.timezone

Error:

OverflowError: mktime argument out of range

Is there any alternative way to create negative epoch value?

Solution

  • From the documentation of the time module:

    The functions in this module may not handle dates and times before the epoch or far in the future.

    So that's out. I would suggest using the datetime module instead, which can handle dates in years between 1 and 9999. I'm afraid without knowing your use case we can't be of more help.