Summarizing what I've seen so far: Status quo: [from NAME] import NAME [, NAME] [from NAME] import NAME as NAME There also seems to be consensus on adding: [from NAME] import (NAME [, NAME]) To this, we want to as a way to spell out explicitly how the module is found; for example: -a- by searching sys.path -b- in the current package -c- in the current package or its parent package, recursively -d- among the python standard library modules (and nowhere else) -e- in the current working directory -f- in a specific directory -g- combinations of the above Jack Diederich proposed:
from MODULE import NAMES as RENAME searching HOW or import NAMES as RENAME from MODULE searching HOW
Guido van Rossum oppined:
from COGS import generate searching relative
To me, that looks a lot like someone left the commas out of
from COGS import generate, searching, relative
(---)
A separate suggestion is to switch from "from X import Y" to "import Y from X". This seems a gratuitous change even if it reads or edits marginally better. Now's not the time to tinker with marginal stuff -- that should've been done 10 years ago.
Not only a gratuitous change; it was always my impression that "from" was at the beginning of the statement for exactly the reason Guido is hesitant about adding "searching" at the end of it. With this in mind, my suggestion is to add the searching syntax should before the "import" keyword rather than at the end of the statement. Reusing an existing keyword, we get: [from NAMES] [in WHERE] import ... WHERE would then be an object, or a list of objects (-g-) specifying the import mechanism: -d- __stdlib__ or maybe stdlib -b- __package__ -c- __search__ -e- '.' -f- '/home/bellman/python' -a- sys.path Without any "from" clause, "in WHERE import ..." reads a little strangely, but I think it should be possible to get used to it, just as we've gotten used to the current "from NAME import ..." Would this work ? /Paul