[Python-Dev] ImportError on no permission (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Sun May 6 20:39:45 CEST 2007

Now, why don't we change the semantics as follows: if a file with matching name exists (in import.c::findmodule), but opening fails, ImportError is raised immediately with the concrete error message, and without trying the rest of sys.path. That shouldn't cause any working and sane setup to break, or did I overlook something obvious here?

I wonder how this would behave if a directory on sys.path was unreadable. You might get an ImportError on any import, as it tries the unreadable directory first, gets a permission error, and immediately aborts.

Now, I think it is quite possible that you have inaccessible directories on sys.path, e.g. when you inherit PYTHONPATH from a parent process.

So I would rather let importing proceed, and add a note to the error message that some files could not be read.

Regards, Martin

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