Django Settings Trick: Time Zone

Since django settings are just another python file (Which was one of the reasons I originally chose django - I've been to "pretend you can program in XML" land and it's a hellish blasted wasteland where angle brackets prey upon the weak.) there's no reason you have to put up with the django hardwired timezone. Here's some code that works under Debian linux to pull out the system timezone. We just tossed similar code right in settings.py:

def get_time_zone():
    try:
        tzfile = open('/etc/timezone')
        for line in tzfile:
            if line:
                return line.strip()
    except:
        return 'GMT'
    return 'GMT'
TIME_ZONE = get_time_zone()

If you're not using a linux that writes the timezone into /etc/timezone so agreeably, you'll have to do a little research to learn how to get your time zone string, but the concept stands. Remember to check that you're delivering it in the format django expects, documented in the django docs.

Don't forget to handle exceptions gracefully, and give some indication of errors (which I stripped from this code for space).