[Python-Dev] New relative import issue (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Fri Sep 22 00:28:43 CEST 2006

On 9/21/06, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/21/06, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote: > Isn't the main problem how to specify a bunch of these in the > environment? Or can this be done through .pkg files? Those aren't > cheap either though -- it would be best if the work was only done when > the package is actually needed.

Hmm, I wasn't thinking of the environment. I pretty much never use PYTHONPATH, so I tend to forget about that aspect.

As Phillip understood, I meant the environment to include the filesystem (and on Windows, the registry -- in fact, Python on Windows has exactly such a mechanism in the registry, although I believe it's rarely used these days -- it was done by Mark Hammond to support COM servers I believe.)

I was assuming an importer object with a "register(packagename, filesystempath)" method. Then register the packages you want in your code, or in site.py.

Neither is an acceptable method for an installer tool (e.g. eggs) to register new packages. it needs to be some kind of data file or set of data files.

But yes, you'd need to consider the environment. Possibly just have an initialisation function called at load time (I'm assuming the new hook is defined in a system module of some sort - I mean when that system module is loaded) which parses an environment variable and issues a set of register() calls.

os.environ is useless because there's no way for a package installer to set it for all users.

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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