A few SWIG/Python questions

[Derek Allen]

I'm using SWIG to generate glue code for my embedded/extended python app. 
There are a couple of very frustrating issues that I would like to see if 
anyone else has solutions for:

- Once I have created and initialized a module with SWIG I can call it by 
executing a python file with no problems. However I would like to be able to 
type in a single-line python function and have it execute from my module. 
One line cannot contain both "import _mypackage" and 
"_mypackage.DoFunction("hello")" (and even if it could it would be 
cumbersome). I cannot find a way to manually import (in code) the methods 
from my package prior to executing the single-line instruction. I can get 
the dictionary but that doesn't give me the methods. How do I do this?

- For some reason whatever name I give the module (via %module name) ends up 
with an underscore at its beginning - e.g., _name. I don't know why this is, 
and it was the source of some serious hair-pulling. Is there a way to turn 
this off (without recompiling the swig executable)?

- SWIG in general generates a TON of code for the glue module. Is there a 
way to reduce this?

- SWIG wraps everything with extern "C", which is unnecessary for my code 
and requires me to decorate functions unnecessarily. Is there a way to turn 
this off?

Thanks.