threading bug in strptime

[Akira Li]

Larry Martell <larry.martell at gmail.com> writes:

> We have been trying to figure out an intermittent problem where a
> thread would fail with this:
>
> AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute '_strptime'
>
> Even though we were importing datetime. After much banging our heads
> against the wall, we found this:
>
> http://code-trick.com/python-bug-attribute-error-_strptime/
>
> The workaround suggested there, to call strptime before starting your
> threads, seems to have fixed the issue.
>
> I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone else is facing this.

I can reproduce it in Python 2 (but not in Python 3) even with
*threading* module:

  #!/usr/bin/env python
  import threading
  import time

  for _ in range(10):
      threading.Thread(target=time.strptime,
                       args=("2013-06-02", "%Y-%m-%d")).start()

Don't use *thread* directly (it is even renamed to *_thread* in Python
3, to discourage an unintended usage), use *threading* module instead.

In Python 3.3+, PyImport_ImportModuleNoBlock()  is deprecated
  https://bugs.python.org/issue9260