“Most likely due to circular import” in Python

import threading
import time

start = time.perf_counter()

def do_something():
    print("Sleeping in 1 second")
    time.sleep(1)
    print("Done sleeping")

t1 = threading.Thread(target=do_something)
t2 = threading.Thread(target=do_something)

finish = time.perf_counter()
print(f"Finished in {round(finish-start,1)} seconds(s) ")

Does anyone know why this piece of code returns this error when run and how to fix it?

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:/Users/amanm/Desktop/Python/Python Crash Course/threading.py", line 1, in <module>
    import threading
  File "c:UsersamanmDesktopPythonPython Crash Coursethreading.py", line 12, in <module>
    t1 = threading.Thread(target=do_something)
AttributeError: partially initialized module 'threading' has no attribute 'Thread' (most likely due to a circular import) 

When I run this code in normal IDLE it seems to work but it doesn’t work in Visual Studio Code.

Answer

It seems like the program file you have created is named threading.py, and you are importing a module also called threading. This causes a circular import because your file is shadowing the built-in module.

Please rename your program (e.g., threading_example.py).