[Tutor] importing

[Bob Gailer]

--=======268B3E9C=======
Content-Type: text/plain; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-13356CED; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

At 02:14 PM 6/24/2003 -0500, Isaac Hall wrote:

>alright, this is kind of an odd question, and Im not sure that there is
>another way I can go about doing this.
>
>I have a program that I would like to call with one or more than one
>configuration files in the command line.  For what I want, the easiest way
>to create these configuration files was just to make them a collection of
>python dictionaries.  This way I figured I wouldnt have to waste time
>creating some method to read a configuration file.  However I found that
>putting in a statement like:
>
>try:
>    import sys.argv[1]
>except:
>    print 'bad config file'
>
>doesnt quite work.  Does anyone know if there are clever ways to import a
>file that can be specified in the command line?

Unfortunately the language reference is not 100% precise in its explanation 
of import. The word following import must be a module name (just as the 
word following def must be a variable name to which the function is bound; 
ditto for class classname). When the module name is stored as a string 
you'd have to dynamically create and execute the import thus: exec "import 
" + sys.argv[1].

Fortunately there is another way: __import__(sys.argv[1]). __import__ is 
used (under the covers as it were) by the import statement.

Bob Gailer
bgailer@alum.rpi.edu
303 442 2625

--=======268B3E9C=======
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-avg=cert; x-avg-checked=avg-ok-13356CED
Content-Disposition: inline


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.492 / Virus Database: 291 - Release Date: 6/24/2003

--=======268B3E9C=======--