[Import-SIG] PEP 382: Partial packages

[P.J. Eby]

At 12:24 AM 7/12/2011 +0200, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>So I don't see why the PHP include mechanism is related to "namespace
>packages" at all.

Because only in Python does a search for "foo/bar" (whatever the 
separator) *stops* the path search when there is a match for 
"foo/".  In PHP, Perl, and Java, searching continues along the path 
until the entire target is matched, regardless of whether the name 
parts are separated by slashes (PHP), dots (Java), or double-colons (Perl).

That's why Python's behavior here is arguably a misfeature.  In these 
other languages, there is a distinction between an entity named "x" 
and a *namespace* named "x::" (or "x/" or "x."), in their on-disk 
representations.

For example, in Java, the class org.Foo is distinct from the 
namespace org.Foo.* in on-disk representation, as you have 
org/Foo.java (or .class) sitting outside the directory org/Foo/ 
(where any contents of org.Foo.* would be located.

Similarly in Perl, Foo.pm sits outside the Foo/ directory, thereby 
distinguishing Foo and Foo::.

Python, however, in the case where both a Foo module and Foo package 
exist, places the module *inside* the package.

If Python were following the model of these other languages, then 
instead of using zope/__init__.py, we would place a zope.py in the 
parent directory, and when importing zope.interface, we would search 
the entire path for zope/ subdirectories containing an 
interface.py...  but we wouldn't look for interface/ directories 
until/unless we tried to import zope.interface.foo.