imported module no longer available

[Fredrik Lundh]

Jeff Dyke wrote:

>> actually no, the only things in that fucntion were.
>>        print globals().keys() - i see it here
>>        print mymodulename - it fails here.
>>
>> the `import mymodulename` statement is at the very top of the file.
>>
>> plus the processing that was attempted after.

so how did that processing use the "mymodulename" name?

 >> in fact in the calling
>> method i was able to execute print mymodulename and it printed the
>> expected python output.

the calling method has nothing to do with what's considered to be a 
local variable in the method being called, so that only means that the 
name is indeed available in the global scope.

>> So i went back to check that the name 'mymodulename' was not getting
>> overwritten by something else and the error went away.  I've been
>> working on something else entirely for the past few hours and have
>> changed none of the code...and now it works.  which is even more
>> troublesome then the error itself.

more likely, it indicates that you removed the line that caused Python 
to treat that name as a local variable.

>> Follow on question.  If this name, mymodulename, was imported in some
>> other module.fucntion local to a function like
>> def anotherfunc():
>>    import mymodulename
>>
>> would that remove it from the globals() and save it to a locals() ?  I
>> would assume the answer to be no.

even after reading the page I pointed you to?

import binds a name, so an import statement inside a function will cause 
Python to treat that name as a local variable (unless you add a global 
declaration to that function).

maybe a few examples will make this clearer; the following snippets are 
complete programs:

snippet 1:

     import module # adds module to the global namespace

     def func():
         module.func() # uses module from the global namespace

     func() # no error here

snippet 2:

     def func():
         import module # adds module to the *local* namespace
         module.func()

     func() # no error here
     module.func() # doesn't work; no module in global namespace

snippet 3:

     def func():
         global module # marks module as a global name
         import module # adds module to the *global* namespace
         module.func()

     func() # no error here
     module.func() # no error here; global module set by function

snippet 4:

     import module # adds module to global namespace

     def func():
         import module # adds module to local namespace too
         print module # prints local variable
         module = None # sets local variable to None

     func() # no error here
     module.func() # no error here either; uses global namespace

snippet 5:

     import module

     def func():
         print module # fails with an UnboundLocalError.
         # lots of lines
         import module # adds to local namespace; marks name as local
         # some more code

     func() # will fail at print statement

my guess is that the last snippet corresponds to your case.

</F>