the O_writelines function in Modules/cStringIO contains the following code: if (!string_joinfields) { UNLESS(string_module = PyImport_ImportModule("string")) { return NULL; } UNLESS(string_joinfields= PyObject_GetAttrString(string_module, "joinfields")) { return NULL; } Py_DECREF(string_module); } I suppose someone should fix this some day... (btw, the C API reference implies that ImportModule doesn't use import hooks. does that mean that cStringIO doesn't work under e.g. Gordon's installer?) </F>