[Python-Dev] Hook Extension Module Import? (original) (raw)

Aahz aahz@pythoncraft.com
Sun, 20 Apr 2003 14:31:05 -0400

On Sun, Apr 20, 2003, David Abrahams wrote:

Aahz <aahz@pythoncraft.com> writes:

On Sun, Apr 20, 2003, David Abrahams wrote:

Aahz <aahz@pythoncraft.com> writes:

On Sun, Apr 20, 2003, David Abrahams wrote:

I think I need a way to temporarily (from 'C'), arrange to be notified just before and just after a new extension module is loaded. Is this possible? I didn't see anything obvious in the source. BTW, I'd be just as happy if it were possible to do the same thing for any module (i.e., not discriminating between extension and pure python modules). http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0302.html I guess I should take that to mean "you can't do that yet" (?) As the PEP says, you could define an import hook, but that would likely be more effort than you want. It also says: The situation gets worse when you need to extend the import mechanism from C: it's currently impossible, apart from hacking Python's import.c or reimplementing much of import.c from scratch. OTOH, it's not obvious to me why this should be so. Can't I access/replace builtins.import from C/C++?

Sure, but then you need to replace import.c, just as it says. I'd be inclined to do the heavy lifting in Python with a callback into C code (after all, you're not calling it so frequently as to make it a performance issue).

Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

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