from-import on non-module objects?

[Rainer Deyke]

"Hamish Lawson" <hamish_lawson at yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:959jna$nfl$1 at nnrp1.deja.com...
>     class AClass:
>
>         def __init__(self, x, y):
>             self.x = x
>             self.y = y
>
>         def output(self):
>             from self import *
>             print x, y

This probably won't ever be added to Python for two reasons:

1. It is inconsistent.  In 'from A import *', 'A' is not drawn from the
current namespace, but from the external "namespace" of all modules that can
be imported from the current package.

2. It is ambiguous.  If there exists a module called 'self', how is the
above statement to behave?

Incidentally, while 'from A import *' in a function works, it does not
behave correctly as of version 2.0.  In particular, the following function
fails to behave as expected:

def f():
  global path
  from sys import *
  print path

The problem goes away if I either remove 'global path' or replace the
'import *' with 'import path'.  I'm guessing it took a really ugly hack to
get this to work at all, given how local variables are normally addressed,
and the hack is not entirely reliable.


--
Rainer Deyke (root at rainerdeyke.com)
Shareware computer games           -           http://rainerdeyke.com
"In ihren Reihen zu stehen heisst unter Feinden zu kaempfen" - Abigor