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

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Fri Nov 28 12:48:51 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. I meant that you have to import sys only to access sys.modules (i.e. importing sys may not be necessary otherwise).

As Hrvoje has pointed out, 'sys' is part of the internal interpreter machinery - it's there as soon as the interpreter starts. The import call for it just grabs it out of the module cache and creates a reference to it in the current namespace.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan at gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

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