[Python-Dev] Importing top-level modules (original) (raw)

Brian Quinlan brian@sweetapp.com
Tue, 16 Apr 2002 15:00:41 -0700

Juergen wrote:

I had a problem yesterday where I wanted to extend a top-level module by a module in a subpackage. I naively named my module the same as the toplevel module, and peer import bit me. I finally had to rename my module for no good reason to get things working.

What you are trying to do seems likely to cause confusion. But if you really need this, couldn't you just mangle sys.path for a single import and then restore it? It's kind of ugly but it would work.

So my question is: is there an easy way to force a top-level import (adress the top-level namespace), that I overlooked?

If not, what do you think of a from top import systemmodule similar to from future ...

I don't like this idea. I'd hate to encourage people to give their subpackages the same name as system modules:

from package import string

many lines of code later

string.do_something_wierd() # what?!?

An alternative syntax would be "import .systemmodule", but that seems obscure.

That's grotesque. Especially since I think of a leading period as meaning current directory :-)

Cheers, Brian