[Python-Dev] Re: [Python-checkins] CVS: python/dist/src/Misc NEWS,1.108,1.109

[Thomas Wouters]

On Mon, Jan 29, 2001 at 05:27:30PM -0800, Jeremy Hylton wrote:

> add note about two kinds of illegal imports that are now checked

> + - The compiler will report a SyntaxError if "from ... import *" occurs
> +   in a function or class scope or if a name bound by the import
> +   statement is declared global in the same scope.  The language
> +   reference has also documented that these cases are illegal, but
> +   they were not enforced.

Woah. Is this really a good idea ? I have seen 'from ... import *' in a
function scope put to good (relatively -- we're talking 'import *' here)
use. I also thought of 'import' as yet another assignment statement, so to
me it's both logical and consistent if 'import' would listen to 'global'.
Otherwise we have to re-invent 'import spam; eggs = spam' if we want eggs to
be global. 

Is there really a reason to enforce this, or are we enforcing the wording of
the language reference for the sake of enforcing the wording of the language
reference ? When writing 'import as' for 2.0, I fixed some of the
inconsistencies in import, making it adhere to 'global' statements in as
many cases as possible (all except 'from ... import *') but I was apparently
not aware of the wording of the language reference. I'd suggest updating the
wording in the language reference, not the implementation, unless there is a
good reason to disallow this.

I also have another issue with your recent patches, Jeremy, also in the
backwards-compatibility departement :) You gave new.code two new,
non-optional arguments, in the middle of the long argument list. I sent a
note about it to python-checkins instead of python-dev by accident, but Fred
seemed to agree with me there.

-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net>

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