[Python-Dev] PEP 273 - Import from Zip Archives

[Steven Majewski]

On Thu, 28 Feb 2002, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

> My only gripe with the existing C implementation is that
> I would like to have more hooks available. Currently, you
> have to replace the complete API in order to add new
> features -- not exactly OO :-/

It might be time to consider, rather than a special case for
zip files only, adding an extensible import mechanism ( something
like the protocol or mime-type handlers for browsers ).

If there's a zipfile in sys.path, then import calls the zipfile
handler to search it, if there's a URL in the path, it calls
a handler for that, etc. ( Maybe even a url for some sort of
directory service that finds the module for you. )

-- Steve       [Obviously thinking about TimBL's talk...]