[Python-Dev] import problems (original) (raw)

Hrvoje Niksic hrvoje.niksic at avl.com
Fri Nov 28 09:33:08 CET 2008

Mart Somermaa wrote:

The variant proposed by Hrvoje Niksic:

>>> import(modname) >>> mod = sys.modules[modname] looks more appealing, but comes with the drawback that sys has to be imported for that purpose only.

That is not a real drawback, as "sys" will certainly be present in the system, so the "importing" boils down to a dict lookup and a variable assignment.

Having said that, I'd add that I found the behavior of import counter-intuitive, but assumed there's a good reason for it. If I hadn't known about sys.modules beforehand, I would have probably gone the chained-getattr route as well.

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