[Python-Dev] Relative vs. absolute imports (original) (raw)

Bernhard Herzog bh at intevation.de
Mon May 17 11:39:42 EDT 2004

Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> writes:

Why does it have to be fixed in an incompatible way? Because in the current situation the meaning of an import is ambiguous.

What exactly is ambiguous about it? There are clear rules how the lookup is performed and determining whether the import refers to another module in the same package or a global module is just a simple directory listing in most cases.

The only real problem with the current scheme is that sibling modules can shadow global ones. While that should be fixed it hardly justifies an incompatible change, as it doesn't happen very often, and it would be easy to fix without breaking compatibility.

Bernhard

-- Intevation GmbH http://intevation.de/ Skencil http://sketch.sourceforge.net/ Thuban http://thuban.intevation.org/

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list