Convert Django DateTimeField values to ISO format in UTC

utcisoformat.py

# Convert Django DateTimeField values to ISO format in UTC
# Useful for making Django DateTimeField values compatible with the
# jquery.localtime plugin.
#
# https://gist.github.com/1195854

from pytz import timezone, utc
from django.conf import settings


# A pytz.timezone object representing the Django project time zone
# Use TZ.localize(mydate) instead of tzinfo=TZ to ensure that DST rules
# are respected
TZ = timezone(settings.TIME_ZONE)


def utcisoformat(dt):
    """
    Return a datetime object in ISO 8601 format in UTC, without microseconds
    or time zone offset other than 'Z', e.g. '2011-06-28T00:00:00Z'.
    """
    # Convert datetime to UTC, remove microseconds, remove timezone, convert to string
    return TZ.localize(dt.replace(microsecond=0)).astimezone(utc).replace(tzinfo=None).isoformat() + 'Z'