Ethan Furman wrote: > Greetings! > > Does anyone know/recall the original purpose of __all__?
To customise the names available for `from ... import *`: http://docs.python.org/whatsnew/2.1.html#other-changes-and-fixes > I had thought it was primarily to specify what would be imported when > `from ... import *` was executed, such as for tk; Yes, that was the original use. If __all__ is not defined, Python will import everything that doesn't start with an underscore. > today, it seems it is > also used to specify the API for the module, and so the help() subsystem > will only provide details for those items found in __all__. The two meanings are assumed to be synonymous: names in the public API should be importable with *, and importable names should be in the public API. You can't specify "this can be imported with *, but isn't public" or "this is public, but not importable with *". http://docs.python.org/reference/simple_stmts.html#index-1090 Also, the behaviour of __all__ with packages may be slightly different: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/modules.html#index-1134 > The issue I'm having with this is that there are roughly a dozen items I > would like to make available via the `import *` mechanism in my dbf > module, and another dozen that, while part of the public API, don't need > to be available via an `import *`. You have to choose both, or neither, but you can't have just one. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
