gh-81267: Correct time.sleep error message

Lib/test/test_time.py

@@ -167,6 +167,12 @@ def test_sleep_exceptions(self):
         self.assertRaises(ValueError, time.sleep, -1)
         self.assertRaises(ValueError, time.sleep, -0.1)
 
+        # Improved exception #81267
+        with self.assertRaises(TypeError) as errmsg:
+            time.sleep([])
+        self.assertIn("integer or float", str(errmsg.exception))
+
+
     def test_sleep(self):
         for value in [-0.0, 0, 0.0, 1e-100, 1e-9, 1e-6, 1, 1.2]:
             with self.subTest(value=value):

Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2025-03-10-20-23-00.gh-issue-81267.a39381.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Correct :func:`time.sleep` error message when an object that cannot be interpreted
+as an integer or float is provided.

Modules/timemodule.c

@@ -398,8 +398,14 @@ time_sleep(PyObject *self, PyObject *timeout_obj)
     }
 
     PyTime_t timeout;
-    if (_PyTime_FromSecondsObject(&timeout, timeout_obj, _PyTime_ROUND_TIMEOUT))
+    if (_PyTime_FromSecondsObject(&timeout, timeout_obj, _PyTime_ROUND_TIMEOUT)) {
+        if (PyErr_ExceptionMatches(PyExc_TypeError)) {
+            const char *type_name = Py_TYPE(timeout_obj)->tp_name;
+            PyObject* msg = PyUnicode_FromFormat("'%s' object cannot be interpreted as an integer or float", type_name);
+            PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError, PyUnicode_AsUTF8(msg));
+        }
         return NULL;
+    }
     if (timeout < 0) {
         PyErr_SetString(PyExc_ValueError,
                         "sleep length must be non-negative");