[Tutor] using dynamic import statements

[Chris Hare]

Here is what I want to do:

I have a bunch of modules to import. instead of duplicating a lot of code for each import, I want to do something like this:

importList = [ "sys", "os", "imp", "stat", "re", "webbrowser", "Image",  "StringIO", "shutil", "datetime" ]

for object in importList:
        try:
                if debug == "ON":
                        print "Importing module %s" % (object)
                exec( "import  " + object)
        except ImportError as error:
                print "%s %s requires the Python %s library.  " % ( appName,
                                                                str(appVersion), object )
                print "An error occurred when attempting to load the library.  The error was '%s'." % ( error )
                exit()

Everything "appears" to run okay, however, when the first piece of code that relies upon one of these imported modules is executed, I get an error:  

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "a.py", line 122, in <module>
    imp.load_module(object,fp,pathName,description)
  File "./Modules/functions.py", line 133, in <module>
    def special_match(strg, search=re.compile(r'[^a-zA-Z0-9\.\ \-\#\$\*\@\!\%\^\&]').search):
NameError: name 're' is not defined

Is is possible to do what I am trying to do, or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks