Convert python timezone aware datetime string to utc time
Question: I have a Python datetime string that is timezone aware and need to convert it
to UTC timestamp.

    
    
    '2016-07-15T10:00:00-06:00'
    

Most of the SO links talks about getting the current datetime in UTC but not
on converting the given datetime to UTC.


Answer: Hi this was a bit tricky, but here is my, probably far from perfect, answer:

    
    
    [IN]
    import datetime
    import pytz
    date_str = '2016-07-15T10:00:00-06:00'
    # Have to get rid of that bothersome final colon for %z to work
    datetime_object = datetime.datetime.strptime(date_str[:-3] + date_str[-2:], 
    '%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z')
    datetime_object.astimezone(pytz.utc)
    [OUT]
    datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 15, 16, 0, tzinfo=<UTC>)
    

