[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 328 -- relative and multi-line import (original) (raw)

David Goodger goodger at python.org
Sat Apr 3 10:44:13 EST 2004

David Goodger <goodger at python.org> writes:

In other words, is the "Y" here acceptable (where Y is a sibling to the current module's package)?

from ..Y import X

David Abrahams wrote:

Wouldn't that have to be

from ...Y import X ^-------------separator, as in A.B ??

Aha! My confusion is confirmed.

I hadn't thought of requiring a separator "."; that seems like overloading of meaning. I understood the syntax as Aahz describes it, so a single leading "." means "current package" (i.e., sibling of current module), ".." means "parent package" or "up one level", etc.

I'm thinking some other syntax is needed to represent upward travel in the hierarchy, e.g.

from ^.Y import X

That has a certain elegance to it. So ".Y" would mean import from current package, "^.Y" would mean import from parent package, "^^.Y" from parent's parent package, etc.

I don't want to reopen debate needlessly, but the overloading of the meaning of "." is a bit confusing here.

Whatever makes sense to Guido will eventually make sense to me, so I'm not worried.

-- David Goodger

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