importing out of cwd

[Alex Martelli]

"Fredrik Lundh" <effbot at telia.com> wrote in message
news:aFHu5.56$F5.8066 at newsb.telia.net...
> Alex Martelli wrote:
> > You do have to temporarily add to sys.path the directory you want,
> > before importing; then, you can take it off again.  This should work:
> >
> >     import sys
> >     sys.path = [".."] + sys.path
> >     import whatever
> >     sys.path = sys.path[1:]
>
> insert and pop (or del) is slightly more efficient.

Good point.  It's also more readable, for sure!


> more importantly, it's a good idea to wrap the import
> inside a try/finally clause, so you don't screw up the
> path if things go wrong:
>
>     sys.path.insert(0, "..")
>     try:
>         import whatever
>     finally:
>         sys.path.pop(0)

An even better point; it's easy to forget try/finally when
modifying a global data structure with the intent to put it
back afterwards...

Nice to see you back in activity here, btw!-)


Alex