On Thu, Dec 26, 2013 at 5:57 PM, Amber Yust <amber.yust@gmail.com> wrote:
Where the behavior would essentially be as above - attempt to run the import normally, and in cases where the import fails, map the name to a value of None instead. Users who want a different behavior are still free to use the long-form syntax. A possibly variant might be to also only run the import if the name isn't already bound,
I think you mean do the import if the name is unbound *or bound to None.* Otherwise, it doesn't work in the example you gave. Here's another use case. Some modules, e.g., pycrypto need to be compiled in order to be installed. I have a stub version of pycrypto which can be used as a substitute for testing without actually encrypting anything. Rather than using a new keyword, the try keyword would fit here fine: try import Crypto try import CryptoStub as Crypto note that there are cases where this can't be a drop in replacement: try import Crypto.Random try import CryptoStub.Random as Crypto.Random # not allowed you'd have to instead write: try import Crypto.Random as CryptoRandom try import CryptoStub.Random as CryptoRandom --- Bruce