strptime() in _strptime.py vs lib-dynload/time.so

[igor.tatarinov at gmail.com]

It looks like there are two implementation of strptime() (why?) and
the one that's used by default is the Python version in _strptime.py

Unfortunately, it's pretty slow and takes up a big chunk of my code's
execution time. Is there a way to use the C version instead (is there
a C version in time.so?)

         6199597 function calls (6199433 primitive calls) in 45.820
CPU seconds

   Ordered by: internal time
   List reduced from 183 to 10 due to restriction <10>
   ncalls  tottime  percall  cumtime  percall
filename:lineno(function)
    57765    6.020    0.000   12.970    0.000 /usr/lib64/python2.4/
_strptime.py:273(strptime)
...