Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Robert > Kern wrote: > >> Not all of the modules in a package are imported by importing the >> top-level package. > > You can't import packages, only modules. > >> os.path is a particularly weird case because it is just an alias to the >> platform-specific path-handling module; os is not a package. > > os is a module, os.path is a variable within that module. That's all there > is to it.
The Python documentation could probably be a little more expansive on the import front, but it's an area where historically many different attempts have been made to fix up the problems, or create new and more usable layers [that suffer from different problems]. You *can* import a package, and a package is just a *little* different from a module in that the __init__.py file in the package directory provides the source for the first-import execution instead of the modulename.py file. The global namespace during this process is the package's global namespace, so if further imports are executed by the __init__ module the names of the imported objects are created in the package global namespace (along with the names of defined classes and functions, and other names bound by assignment) and can therefore be referenced relative to it. The package in which the package import was executed will end up defined in the namespace in which the import statement was executed. I will grant that you can't basically do anything in the __init__.py that you can't do in a module's modulename.py file. It is possible to define a hierarchy of namespaces concordant with the package's directory structure, but it doesn't matter whether package import creates the hierarchical namespace or assignment does. You can access module namespaces in a hierarchical way. That's about all that can be said without delving into the murky land of relative vs. absolute imports. That can be for another day. And another writer, probably. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +1 571 484 6266 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC/Ltd http://www.holdenweb.com Skype: holdenweb http://del.icio.us/steve.holden Sorry, the dog ate my .sigline -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
