Anthony Baxter wrote:

Jim Fulton wrote:

...

If a dotted module name is given, then parent modules will be imported if they haven't already been imported.

So you might end up spelling something like:

if imp.exists('pkg') and imp.exists('pkg.subpkg') \ and imp.exists('pkg.subpkg.module'):

to avoid an importerror on the parent module?

No. If pkg doesn't exist then exists will report False. Here's new wording: exists(module_name) Test whether the named module can be found. This method should be used when you want to perform alternate actions depending on whether a module is available. Returns True of the module can be found and False otherwise. A True return value does not guarentee that the module will be importable. The module will not be imported as a result of calling exists, but parent modules may be. If a dotted module name is given and parent modules exist, then the parent modules will be imported if they haven't already been imported. Thanks, Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@zope.com Python Powered! CTO (540) 361-1714 http://www.python.org Zope Corporation http://www.zope.com http://www.zope.org