[Python-Dev] Relative vs. absolute imports

Phillip J. Eby pje at telecommunity.com
Mon May 17 10:20:37 EDT 2004


At 03:42 PM 5/17/04 +0200, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>I have a few questions about the PEP 328 which I'd like discussed:
>
>* Why do we absolutely need to change the current scheme
>   of 'local, then absolute' for name resolution ?

Because there's no way to override the current scheme without calling 
__import__ directly.


>* How will the proposed 'absolute only' strategy affect
>   the __import__() API ?

It doesn't change the API, only what arguments it gets called 
with.  Passing a different globals dictionary is all that's required to 
effect an absolute import.


>* Will the DeprecationWarning only be raised for uses of
>   'import xyz' and 'from xyz import a' or also for __import__() ?

It should not be for __import__().


>* How do these semantics changes affect importers that hook
>   into __import__ ? (imputil.py, ihooks.py, etc.)
>
>* What's the affect on zip imports or tools like py2exe,
>   McMillan's installer, etc. ?

Again, since the __import__ API isn't changing, it shouldn't affect any of 
this.




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