import arcpy tramples datetime import

[FredSpataro]

I've never seen anything that states arcpy should/must be imported first in order to not override other system modules.  I only skimmed this document but didn't see anything specific, although their examples tend to imply it.  However if you do a import-from on datetime BEFORE importing arcpy, then you're datetime import will be destroyed:

>>> from datetime import datetime
>>> datetime.now()
datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 14, 12, 10, 12, 433000)
>>> import arcpy
>>> datetime.now()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'now'
>>> 

Either import datetime after arcpy or use the import-from-as syntax and give datetime an alias.

[ClintonDow1]

Which version of ArcGIS/Python are you experiencing this in?

[FredSpataro]

I see it on all the ones I've tried so far:

32 bit 10.3.1

64 bit 10.3.1

32 bit 10.4

Haven't tired any others.

[ClintonDow1]

Thanks. I'll test and submit a bug report.

[FredSpataro]

Great, thanks.  At the very least, note it in the document about importing Arcpy.  There's always the chance of namespace/module collision but I've never seen one like this.

[ClintonDow1]

As a workaround you can use:

import datetime
datetime.datetime.now()
import arcpy
datetime.datetime.now()

Or alternatively:

from datetime import datetime as dt
dt.now()
import arcpy
dt.now()

We'll still look into the actual bug as well

[FredSpataro]

Thanks, I've started making arcpy the first import and using the second option, safe aliases, a standard.

[LoganPugh]

Clinton Dow‌ has this been resolved in any released version of ArcGIS? Or is there a Nimbus # associated with it yet? I'm also running into this at 10.4.1, though it is easy enough to work around.

[ClintonDow1]

Currently its logged on our internal version control system as a bug, but lower priority due to the workaround. I'll bring it up again at the next Python meeting. I figure it could be fairly problematic if arcpy is used mid-stream in a script that imports other complex packages. 

[JoshuaBixby]

While you are talking about datetime, maybe just mention that math, sys, and time also get clobbered when importing arcpy.  I can understand arcpy importing arcgis, but I can't think of any other packages I work with that re-import base packages into the global namespace.