On 2016-05-27 08:09, Nikolaus Rath wrote:
Very true. But as someone else already said (I can't find the email right now), we have a different construct that everyone is familiar with and that's easily adapted for this situation:
from dict context import active_id, active_ids, active_model
or more general:
"from dict" <expr> "import" <identifier list>
Everyone knows that "from .. import .." modifies the local namespace. We just have to extend it to work not just on modules, but also on dictionaries.
One problem with this is that currently "from" doesn't operate on names or objects. It operates on module paths. You can't do this: import somepackage as othername from othername import something (You'll get "No module named othername".) If we change this, it will be confusing, because when you see "from blah import stuff" you won't know offhand whether it's going to just read a value from a dict or go searching the filesystem, which are quite different operations. It might be possible, though, to leverage "from" without also having to use "import": from somedict get thiskey, thatkey I'm not sure I actually like this idea, but I like it more than repurposing "import". "import" has a quite idiosyncratic meaning in Python that has to do with looking for files on disk and running them; overloading this with totally file-local operations like getting keys from dicts seems too wild to me. -- Brendan Barnwell "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path, and leave a trail." --author unknown