[Python-Dev] New relative import issue

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 01:54 PM 9/21/2006 -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>On 9/21/06, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 9/21/06, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> > > I think one missing feature is a mechanism whereby you can say "THIS
> > > package (gives top-level package name) lives HERE (gives filesystem
> > > location of package)" without adding the parent of HERE to sys.path
> > > for all module searches. I think Phillip Eby's egg system might
> > > benefit from this.
> >
> > This is pretty easy to do with a custom importer on sys.meta_path.
> > Getting the details right is a touch fiddly, but it's conceptually
> > straightforward.
>
>Isn't the main problem how to specify a bunch of these in the
>environment?

Yes, that's exactly the problem, assuming that by environment you mean the 
operating environment, as opposed to e.g. os.environ.  (Environment 
variables are problematic for installation purposes, as on Unix-y systems 
there is no one obvious place to set them, and on Windows, the one obvious 
place is one that the user may have no permissions for!)