From 7323b50a1bb570958e8127b59ca488c97c876631 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Thomas Li <47963215+lithomas1@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2021 05:45:47 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] Backport PR #39355: BUG: read_excel failing to check older
 xlrd versions properly

---
 doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.2.rst        | 2 ++
 pandas/compat/_optional.py            | 4 ++--
 pandas/io/excel/_base.py              | 4 ++--
 pandas/tests/io/excel/__init__.py     | 4 ++--
 pandas/util/_print_versions.py        | 4 ++--
 scripts/validate_unwanted_patterns.py | 1 -
 6 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.2.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.2.rst
index c5825d0881515..51535501f5c1b 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.2.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.2.2.rst
@@ -14,6 +14,8 @@ including other versions of pandas.
 
 Fixed regressions
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+- Fixed regression in :func:`read_excel` that caused it to raise ``AttributeError`` when checking version of older xlrd versions (:issue:`38955`)
 - Fixed regression in :class:`DataFrame` constructor reordering element when construction from datetime ndarray with dtype not ``"datetime64[ns]"`` (:issue:`39422`)
 - Fixed regression in :meth:`~DataFrame.to_pickle` failing to create bz2/xz compressed pickle files with ``protocol=5`` (:issue:`39002`)
 - Fixed regression in :func:`pandas.testing.assert_series_equal` and :func:`pandas.testing.assert_frame_equal` always raising ``AssertionError`` when comparing extension dtypes (:issue:`39410`)
diff --git a/pandas/compat/_optional.py b/pandas/compat/_optional.py
index 533e67acfa2f4..4ed9df2c97fdb 100644
--- a/pandas/compat/_optional.py
+++ b/pandas/compat/_optional.py
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
 }
 
 
-def _get_version(module: types.ModuleType) -> str:
+def get_version(module: types.ModuleType) -> str:
     version = getattr(module, "__version__", None)
     if version is None:
         # xlrd uses a capitalized attribute name
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@ def import_optional_dependency(
 
     minimum_version = VERSIONS.get(name)
     if minimum_version:
-        version = _get_version(module)
+        version = get_version(module)
         if distutils.version.LooseVersion(version) < minimum_version:
             assert on_version in {"warn", "raise", "ignore"}
             msg = (
diff --git a/pandas/io/excel/_base.py b/pandas/io/excel/_base.py
index 5be8dbf152309..b4d7ee418ea1e 100644
--- a/pandas/io/excel/_base.py
+++ b/pandas/io/excel/_base.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 
 from pandas._libs.parsers import STR_NA_VALUES
 from pandas._typing import Buffer, FilePathOrBuffer, StorageOptions
-from pandas.compat._optional import import_optional_dependency
+from pandas.compat._optional import get_version, import_optional_dependency
 from pandas.errors import EmptyDataError
 from pandas.util._decorators import Appender, deprecate_nonkeyword_arguments, doc
 
@@ -1049,7 +1049,7 @@ def __init__(
         else:
             import xlrd
 
-            xlrd_version = LooseVersion(xlrd.__version__)
+            xlrd_version = LooseVersion(get_version(xlrd))
 
         if xlrd_version is not None and isinstance(path_or_buffer, xlrd.Book):
             ext = "xls"
diff --git a/pandas/tests/io/excel/__init__.py b/pandas/tests/io/excel/__init__.py
index b7ceb28573484..9dda54915ab1c 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/io/excel/__init__.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/io/excel/__init__.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 import pytest
 
-from pandas.compat._optional import import_optional_dependency
+from pandas.compat._optional import get_version, import_optional_dependency
 
 pytestmark = [
     pytest.mark.filterwarnings(
@@ -32,4 +32,4 @@
 else:
     import xlrd
 
-    xlrd_version = LooseVersion(xlrd.__version__)
+    xlrd_version = LooseVersion(get_version(xlrd))
diff --git a/pandas/util/_print_versions.py b/pandas/util/_print_versions.py
index 5256cc29d5543..5b951cab1e3dc 100644
--- a/pandas/util/_print_versions.py
+++ b/pandas/util/_print_versions.py
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 from typing import Dict, Optional, Union
 
 from pandas._typing import JSONSerializable
-from pandas.compat._optional import VERSIONS, _get_version, import_optional_dependency
+from pandas.compat._optional import VERSIONS, get_version, import_optional_dependency
 
 
 def _get_commit_hash() -> Optional[str]:
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ def _get_dependency_info() -> Dict[str, JSONSerializable]:
         mod = import_optional_dependency(
             modname, raise_on_missing=False, on_version="ignore"
         )
-        result[modname] = _get_version(mod) if mod else None
+        result[modname] = get_version(mod) if mod else None
     return result
 
 
diff --git a/scripts/validate_unwanted_patterns.py b/scripts/validate_unwanted_patterns.py
index 9c58a55cb907e..8f48d518a737b 100755
--- a/scripts/validate_unwanted_patterns.py
+++ b/scripts/validate_unwanted_patterns.py
@@ -29,7 +29,6 @@
     "_doc_template",
     "_agg_template",
     "_pipe_template",
-    "_get_version",
     "__main__",
     "_transform_template",
     "_flex_comp_doc_FRAME",