[ python-Bugs-1290505 ] strptime(): can't switch locales more than once

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Bugs item #1290505, was opened at 2005-09-13 15:50
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Category: Python Library
Group: Python 2.4
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Adam Monsen (meonkeys)
Assigned to: Nobody/Anonymous (nobody)
Summary: strptime(): can't switch locales more than once

Initial Comment:
After calling strptime() once, it appears that
subsequent efforts to modify the locale settings (so
dates strings in different locales can be parsed) throw
a ValueError. I'm pasting everything here since spacing
is irrelevant:

import locale, time
print locale.getdefaultlocale()        # ('en_US', 'utf')
print locale.getlocale(locale.LC_TIME) # (None, None)
# save old locale
old_loc = locale.getlocale(locale.LC_TIME)
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_TIME, 'nl_NL')
print locale.getlocale(locale.LC_TIME) # ('nl_NL',
'ISO8859-1')
# parse local date
date = '10 augustus 2005 om 17:26'
format = '%d %B %Y om %H:%M'
dateTuple = time.strptime(date, format)
# switch back to previous locale
locale.setlocale(locale.LC_TIME, old_loc)
print locale.getlocale(locale.LC_TIME) # (None, None)
date = '10 August 2005 at 17:26'
format = '%d %B %Y at %H:%M'
dateTuple = time.strptime(date, format)

The output I get from this script is:

('en_US', 'utf')
(None, None)
('nl_NL', 'ISO8859-1')
(None, None)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "switching.py", line 17, in ?
    dateTuple = time.strptime(date, format)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/_strptime.py", line 292, in
strptime
    raise ValueError("time data did not match format: 
data=%s  fmt=%s" %
ValueError: time data did not match format:  data=10
August 2005 at 17:26  fmt=%d %B %Y at %H:%M


One workaround I found is by manually busting the
regular expression cache in _strptime:

import _strptime
_strptime._cache_lock.acquire()
_strptime._TimeRE_cache = _strptime.TimeRE()
_strptime._regex_cache = {}
_strptime._cache_lock.release()

If I do all that, I can change the LC_TIME part of the
locale as many times as I choose.

If this isn't a bug, this should at least be in the
documentation for the locale module and/or strptime().

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