I propose a different approach to the importer hook mechanism: - An importer register itself with sys.register_importer(), as suggested by MAL. - No .zip/.tar/.whatever files are ever included in sys.path - Alternative importers are only considered when the default importer mechanism fails (each entry in the path at a time, so that precedence is preserved). - Alternative importers, when activated, would be given the module name being imported, and would look for entries in the "current" iterated path by themselves. - A zip importer would, for example, look if the current iterated path have a file named "__init__.zip". - The same importer could also be able to look for a file named "mypackage.zip", if "import mypackage.foo" is tried. What's your opinion about that? -- Gustavo Niemeyer [ 2AAC 7928 0FBF 0299 5EB5 60E2 2253 B29A 6664 3A0C ]