Import trouble

[Frans Englich]

On Wednesday 15 December 2004 13:44, Craig Ringer wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-12-15 at 21:45, Frans Englich wrote:
> > 2) I use Python modules which are not usually installed(libxml2/libxslt)
> > and want to fail gracefully in case the modules aren't available; print
> > an informative message. Since these imports are done in several related
> > programs, I don't want to duplicate the code, but instead centralize it.
> > The problem is that when I put the module imports/exception code in a
> > function, it is as if it wasn't imported, even though there was no
> > exceptions. I suspect this is because the import is only done into the
> > current namespace: the function scope(instead of file scope as I want).
> > Is there any solution to my problem? Or should I solve it in another way?
>
> def import_xml:
>    try:
>        import libxml
>    except ImportError,err:
>        # handle the error
>    return libxml
>
> libxml = import_xml()

Ah thanks. When will one stop to take the limits of Python's introspection for 
granted?


Cheers,

		Frans