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This article provides an in-depth analysis of the limitations in timezone handling within Python's standard library datetime.strptime() function. By examining the underlying implementation mechanisms, it reveals why strptime() cannot parse %Z timezone abbreviations and compares behavioral differences across Python versions. The article details the correct usage of the %z directive for parsing UTC offsets and presents python-dateutil as a more robust alternative. Through practical code examples and fundamental principle analysis, it helps developers comprehensively understand Python's datetime parsing mechanisms for timezone handling.

This technical article provides an in-depth analysis of why Python 2.7 datetime objects' ISO format lacks the Z suffix, exploring ISO 8601 standard requirements for timezone designators. It presents multiple practical solutions including strftime() customization, custom tzinfo subclass implementation, and third-party library integration. Through comparison with JavaScript's toISOString() method, the article explains the distinction between timezone-aware and naive datetime objects, discusses Python standard library limitations in ISO 8601 compliance, and examines future improvement possibilities while maintaining backward compatibility.