circular imports (don't yell!)

[jimh]

We have a scenario where we have (and need) circular imports, that is, A
imports B imports C imports A.  Now I know there are ways around this, but
we have external dependencies that make it very difficult to use an
alternative, so don't be yelling at me about the design ;)

I have whittled the problem down to 3 files:

a.py
------
from b import *
from c import *
consta = 3
if __name__ == "__main__":
   print consta
   print constb
   print constc

b.py
------
print "in b"
from c import *
constb = 4
constb2 = constc + 10

c.py
------
print "in c"
from a import *
constc = 5

As these are given here, it works.  But if I switch the order of the two
imports in a.py, it doesn't work:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "a.py", line 2, in ?
    from c import *
  File "c.py", line 2, in ?
    from a import *
  File "a.py", line 3, in ?
    from b import *
  File "b.py", line 5, in ?
    constb2 = constc + 10
NameError: name 'constc' is not defined

I think this is what is happening:
  - a imports c so c is marked as "loaded"
  - c imports a
  - a imports b
  - b imports c, but c is already marked as "loaded", however, it hasn't
REALLY been loaded, thus constc is not yet defined.

Any ideas?

Jim

Thanks.