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

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Thu Dec 18 01:49:54 EST 2003

On Wed, 2003-12-17 at 23:55, Guido van Rossum wrote:

This can be interpreted in two ways though. You could be unfortunate enough to create a module in your package that has the same name as a standard module you also need to import from inside the same package -- that's currently impossible.

Right, and I'd like to make that possible. The least disruptive way I see of doing that is to introduce a magic root package from which things can be imported from. E.g. import root.re

But the most common variant I've seen is what Tim Peters describes: having a module in the current directory that accidentally hides a standard module.

Yep, I've been bit by that too.

The latter case does not involve packages and will not be fixed by any import syntax -- it can only be fixed by changing the default sys.path not to include the current directory, just like over the last decade or so Unix shells have stopped putting '.' in $PATH.

Yep. I haven't had '.' in my $PATH for a bazillion years. :)

But that has other downsides: it would be a lot harder to begin writing a program broken up into modules. Hmm, maybe the current directory should be last? That way you can import your own modules except if they clash with the standard library. Hm, but there are so many standard library modules that it might still cause frequent complaints from mystified beginners.

I'm beginning to agree (uselessly) with Tim: import itself is a problem. :-)

There ya go! That's thinking outside the box: let's deprecate import altogether :)

-Barry

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