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

Andrew Bennetts andrew-pythondev at puzzling.org
Wed Dec 17 22:04:09 EST 2003

On Wed, Dec 17, 2003 at 09:33:43PM -0500, Barry Warsaw wrote:

I'll just note that where the current status quo trips /me/ up most is when I accidentally have a local module with the same name as a global module, and then I write an import statement expecting to get the standard library module, but end up getting the local module. That's why when I tend to think about this, I start wanting a way to spell "definitely give me the global one, no matter what". IOW, I feel like I want a way to bypass relative module lookups.

Alternatively, maybe what you want is a way to say "definitely give me the standard library one, no matter what", e.g.

from stdlib import codecs

This would allow other packages to have their own codecs module/package without worrying about confusing import errors. To make this backwards compatible, though, we'd probably need the equivalent of C++'s "using namespace" statement, with no declaration being equivalent to:

using namespace stdlib

Or perhaps more python-like:

__import_base__ = 'stdlib'

Python 3.0 might default to import_base = '', to force people to be explicit.

Actually, the proposed with statement could be used here, e.g.

import stdlib
with stdlib:
    from . import codecs, user, gc

looks reasonably clear to me, and for long package paths, it could be very convenient:

import zope.app.interfaces
with zope.app.interfaces:
    from .location import ILocation
    from .foo import IFoo, IBar
    # etc

-Andrew.

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