On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:00 AM, Skip Montanaro wrote:

I just got burned (wasted a good day or so) by the fact that PyDateTimeAPI wasn't initialized. The datetime.rst doc states (emphasis mine):

Before using any of these functions, the header file :file:`datetime.h` must be included in your source (note that this is not included by :file:`Python.h`), and the macro :c:macro:`PyDateTime_IMPORT` must be invoked, *usually as part of the module initialisation function*.

I thought that surely the datetime module itself would initialize that stuff. Why not?

It is fairly common for the modules that export C API in a capsule to only initialize that capsule when explicitly asked. For example, if you want to use numpy C API, you need to call import_array() in your module initialization function. [1] I don't know how expensive PyDateTime_IMPORT is, but it cannot be called in _datetimemodule.c because it is guarded by the Py_BUILD_CORE macro and is not available when _datetimemodule.c itself is compiled. I don't know whether this can be easily circumvented, but it is not hard to remember that one should initialize C API before using it. Maybe we can improve the error message when PyDateTime_IMPORT is forgotten. Feel free to open an issue for that. [1]: https://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-1.12.0/user/c-info.how-to-extend.html#requi...