[Python-Dev] Does Zip Importer have to be Special? (original) (raw)

Phil Thompson phil at riverbankcomputing.com
Thu Jul 24 18:55:15 CEST 2014

I have an importer for use in applications that embed an interpreter that does a similar job to the Zip importer (except that the storage is a C data structure rather than a .zip file). Just like the Zip importer I need to import my importer and add it to sys.path_hooks. However the earliest opportunity I have to do this is after the Py_Initialize() call returns - but this is too late because some parts of the standard library have already needed to be imported.

My current workaround is to include a modified version of _bootstrap.py as a frozen module that has the necessary steps added to the end of its _install() function.

The Zip importer doesn't have this problem because it gets special treatment - the call to its equivalent code is hard-coded and happens exactly when needed.

What would help is a table of functions that were called where _PyImportZip_Init() is currently called. By default the only entry in the table would be _PyImportZip_Init. There would be a way of modifying the table, either like how PyImport_FrozenModules is handled or how Inittab is handled.

...or if there is a better solution that I have missed that doesn't require a modified _bootstrap.py.

Thanks, Phil

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