[Python-Dev] Fix import errors to have data (original) (raw)

Neal Norwitz neal at metaslash.com
Tue Jul 27 18:49:14 CEST 2004

On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 12:39:22PM -0400, Jim Fulton wrote:

Tim Peters wrote: >[Jim Fulton] > >>No, it won't. For example, suppose foo imports B. B tries to import >>C, but fails. B is now broken, but it is still importable. Actually, >>both foo and B can be imported without errors, even though they are >>broken.

>Then you're proposing a way for a highly knowledgable user to >anticipate, and partially worm around, that Python leaves behind >insane module objects in sys.modules. No. I'm proposing a way for a Python developer to detect the presence or absence of a module. Hm, perhaps it would be better to provide an API (if there isn't one already) to test whether a module is present.

Another possibility could be to add a ChainedImportError (or SubImportError?) which would derive from ImportError. The module which imports a broken module would get the normal ImportError. If the module doesn't catch the exception, it would get converted to this new type of ImportError.

I don't know how easy this would be to implement, but I think it would solve Jim's problem and perhaps be easier to deal with?

Neal

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list