There are several different methods available to create a new DateTime instance.

First there is the main datetime() helper.

>>> import pendulum

>>> dt = pendulum.datetime(2015, 2, 5)
>>> isinstance(dt, datetime)
True
>>> dt.timezone.name
'UTC'

datetime() sets the time to 00:00:00 if it's not specified, and the timezone (the tz keyword argument) to UTC. Otherwise it can be a Timezone instance or simply a string timezone value.

>>> import pendulum

>>> pendulum.datetime(2015, 2, 5, tz='Europe/Paris')
>>> tz = pendulum.timezone('Europe/Paris')
>>> pendulum.datetime(2015, 2, 5, tz=tz)

!!!note

Supported strings for timezones are the one provided
by the [IANA time zone database](https://www.iana.org/time-zones).

The special `local` string is also supported and will return your current timezone.

!!!warning

The `tz` argument is keyword-only, unlike in version `1.x`

The local() helper is similar to datetime() but automatically sets the timezone to the local timezone.

>>> import pendulum

>>> dt = pendulum.local(2015, 2, 5)
>>> print(dt.timezone.name)
'America/Toronto'

!!!note

`local()` is just an alias for `datetime(..., tz='local')`.

There is also the now() method.

>>> import pendulum

>>> now = pendulum.now()

>>> now_in_london_tz = pendulum.now('Europe/London')
>>> now_in_london_tz.timezone_name
'Europe/London'

To accompany now(), a few other static instantiation helpers exist to create known instances. The only thing to really notice here is that today(), tomorrow() and yesterday(), besides behaving as expected, all accept a timezone parameter and each has their time value set to 00:00:00.

>>> now = pendulum.now()
>>> print(now)
'2016-06-28T16:51:45.978473-05:00'

>>> today = pendulum.today()
>>> print(today)
'2016-06-28T00:00:00-05:00'

>>> tomorrow = pendulum.tomorrow('Europe/London')
>>> print(tomorrow)
'2016-06-29T00:00:00+01:00'

>>> yesterday = pendulum.yesterday()
>>> print(yesterday)
'2016-06-27T00:00:00-05:00'

Pendulum enforces timezone aware datetimes, and using them is the preferred and recommended way of using the library. However, if you really need a naive DateTime object, the naive() helper is there for you.

>>> import pendulum

>>> naive = pendulum.naive(2015, 2, 5)
>>> naive.timezone
None

The next helper, from_format(), is similar to the native datetime.strptime() function but uses custom tokens to create a DateTime instance.

>>> dt = pendulum.from_format('1975-05-21 22', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH')
>>> print(dt)
'1975-05-21T22:00:00+00:00'

!!!note

To see all the available tokens, you can check the [Formatter](#formatter) section.

It also accepts a tz keyword argument to specify the timezone:

>>> dt = pendulum.from_format('1975-05-21 22', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH', tz='Europe/London')
'1975-05-21T22:00:00+01:00'

The final helper is for working with unix timestamps. from_timestamp() will create a DateTime instance equal to the given timestamp and will set the timezone as well or default it to UTC.

>>> dt = pendulum.from_timestamp(-1)
>>> print(dt)
'1969-12-31T23:59:59+00:00'

>>> dt  = pendulum.from_timestamp(-1, tz='Europe/London')
>>> print(dt)
'1970-01-01T00:59:59+01:00'

Finally, if you find yourself inheriting a datetime.datetime instance, you can create a DateTime instance via the instance() function.

>>> dt = datetime(2008, 1, 1)
>>> p = pendulum.instance(dt)
>>> print(p)
'2008-01-01T00:00:00+00:00'