I have received a few requests since the 'Python Cookbook' was published to edit my code for a strptime() function in pure Python to run on Jython 2.1 . I have finally come about and made the necessary changes and put them online (thanks to Jon Franz for giving the final push). The code can be found at the Python Cookbook web site at http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/56036 . It is not the fastest or best version of the code (that will always be in the Python CVS MAIN tree), but it seems to work (I have not done extensive testingm but all the changes were minor). I now consider this backport finished. All future enhancements to strptime will continue to go into the Python CVS but will not be backported. If you want the latest and greatest features then consider helping to move Jython forward to its next version or upgrading your version of CPython. -Brett