It is strongly recommended that the time module in your datetime library not be named "time", or be merged into the datetime module of datetime

[zyy37]

Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

It is strongly recommended that the time module in your datetime library not be named time module, or be merged into the datetime module of datetime. Because the time module of datetime has the same name as the time module of the standard library and has low performance, the latter is more commonly used. If the former is used, organizations generally do not want to give the datetime.time module various aliases to avoid conflicts.

For example, how does python compare whether the current time is past 9:30? The implement is,

from datetime import datetime, time

current_time = datetime.now().time()
nine_thirty = time(9, 30)
status = current_time > nine_thirty

The from datetime import time will cause time name conflicts with import time which is a lightweight and high-performance standard libraries. But if developers use your datetime module to construct hours, minutes, and seconds with many lines, like now = datetime.now() hour, minute = now.hour, now.minute, or string way nine_thirty = datetime.strptime("09:30:00", "%H:%M:%S").time(), it will be very troublesome and far less elegant than a single line of code like nine_thirty = time(9, 30).

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

No response given

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

No response

[hugovk]

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

No response given

This needs discussing at https://discuss.python.org/c/ideas/6 first, but it is unlikely to be changed, to maintain backwards compatibility.

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I recommend using this pattern to avoid ambiguity:

import datetime as dt

current_time = dt.datetime.now().time()
nine_thirty = dt.time(9, 30)
status = current_time > nine_thirty

(typed on phone, so there may be a typo)

See https://adamj.eu/tech/2019/09/12/how-i-import-pythons-datetime-module/

[skirpichev]

datetime.time is not a module - it's a class:

>>> import datetime
>>> datetime.time
<class 'datetime.time'>

Because the time module of datetime has the same name as the time module of the standard library

Yes, this name clashes with the time module. It happens in other places of the stdlib as well. E.g. math.log and cmath.log.

Renaming (how?) will be a backward compatibility break. Why do you think it worth? To avoid conflict you might create alias like from datetime import time as badtime.

[zyy37]

You can close it, but you will still encounter many people like me who provide feedback on this issue in the future, just like the one in your link. This shows that the problem is not root cause, it is just a compromise.

[zyy37]

Maybe it is a software design issue.
For example,

from datetime import time, date # It is ok but it will conflict with the standard library 'import time'
t = time(9, 30)
d = date(2025, 12, 1)

or

import datetime # ok
t = datetime.time(9, 30)
d = datetime.date(2025, 12, 1)

both of the above methods are fine, but the one below is incorrect.

from datetime import datetime # error
t = datetime.time(9, 30)
d = datetime.date(2025, 12, 1)

A good design can avoid this confusion. Additionally, time() is sometimes a get property and sometimes a constructor. Going back to the beginning, what I meant was that constructing date or time objects was originally a very simple scenario, but it caused so much trouble...... Thanks.

[hugovk]

As mentioned, please discuss this at discuss.python.org/c/ideas/6 first. Thanks.