[Python-Dev] Add __exports__ to modules

[Ka-Ping Yee]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Guido van Rossum wrote:
> Yes -- I came up with the same thought.
> 
> So here's a plan: somebody please submit a patch that does only one
> thing: from...import * looks for __all__ and if it exists, imports
> exactly those names.  No changes to dir(), or anything.

Please don't use __all__.  At the moment, __all__ is the only way
to easily tell whether a particular module object really represents
a package, and the only way to get the list of submodule names.

If __all__ is overloaded to also represent exportable symbols in
modules, these two pieces of information will be impossible (or
require much ugly hackery) to obtain.


-- ?!ng