[Python-Dev] Syntax suggestion for imports (original) (raw)

Scott Dial scott+python-dev at scottdial.com
Fri Jan 4 09:48:38 CET 2008

Jeroen Ruigrok van der Werven wrote:

[Half tongue-in-cheek]

-On [20080104 08:04], Drew Perttula (drewp at bigasterisk.com) wrote: When I saw the OP, I actually wondered why people whose codebases are "filled" with the same try/except block over and over hadn't just written their own importwithalternative function in the first place. Because you would have to import it as well in order to use it? ;)

The keyphrase was "people whose codebases are 'filled' with ..." If they are maintaining a codebase, then I am sure adding one utility function to their library would be trivial. Or if you have enough of them in one file.. dedicating 7 lines of code for:

def import_any(*names): for name in names: try: return import(name) except StandardError: pass raise ImportError('no importable names')

, seems like a bargain for readability. Or to include the "None" case that people have brought up, we can spare 2 more lines:

def import_any(*names, **kwargs): required = kwargs.get('required', True) for name in names: try: return import(name) except StandardError: pass if required: raise ImportError('no importable names')

If nothing else, writing this email will remind me to avoid this try/except pattern in future codebases, if I have more than 1 instance of it (right about the break even point).

-Scott

-- Scott Dial scott at scottdial.com scodial at cs.indiana.edu

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list