[Import-SIG] PEP 395 (Module aliasing) and the namespace PEPs

[Nick Coghlan]

One of the fixes PEP 395 (module aliasing) proposes is to make running
modules inside packages by filename work correctly (i.e. without
breaking relative imports and without getting the directory where the
module lives directly on sys.path which can lead to unexpected name
clashes). The PEP currently states [1] that this can be made to work
with both PEP 382 and PEP 402

In current Python, fixing this just involves checking for a colocated
__init__.py file. If we find one, then we work our way up the
directory hierarchy until we find a directory without an __init__.py
file, put *that* on sys.path, then (effectively) rewrite the command
line as if the -m switch had been used.

The extension to the current version of PEP 382 is clear - we just
accept both an __init__.py file and a .pyp extension as indicating
"this is part of a Python package", but otherwise the walk back up the
filesystem hierarchy to decide which directory to add to sys.path
remains unchanged.

However, I'm no longer convinced that this concept can actually be
made to work in the context of PEP 402:

1. We can't use sys.path, since we're trying to figure out which
directory we want to *add* to sys.path
2. We can't use "contains a Python module", since PEP 402 allows
directories inside packages that only contain subpackages (only the
leaf directories are required to contain valid Python modules), so we
don't know the significance of an empty directory without already
knowing what is on sys.path!

So, without a clear answer to the question of "from module X, inside
package (or package portion) Y, find the nearest parent directory that
should be placed on sys.path" in a PEP 402 based world, I'm switching
to supporting PEP 382 as my preferred approach to namespace packages.
In this case, I think "explicit is better than implicit" means, "given
only a filesystem hierarchy, you should be able to figure out the
Python package hierarchy it contains". Only explicit markers (either
files or extensions) let you do that - with PEP 402, the filesystem
doesn't contain enough information to figure it out, you need to also
know the contents of sys.path.

Regards,
Nick.

[1] http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0395/#fixing-direct-execution-inside-packages
-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia