Why can't I import this?

[Gary Herron]

John Henry wrote:
> On May 13, 1:49 pm, Gary Herron <gher... at islandtraining.com> wrote:
>   
>> John Henry wrote:
>>     
>>> Hi list,
>>>       
>>> I can't understand this.  The following import statement works fine:
>>>       
>>>     from PythonCard.templates.dialogs import runOptionsDialog
>>>       
>>> but this one fails:
>>>       
>>>     from PythonCard.tools.codeEditor.codeEditor import CodeEditor
>>>       
>> This kind of "dotted" name import only works for packages, and a
>> directory is considered a package only if it contains a file name
>> __init__.py.    Looking around my installation of PythonCard (on Linux)
>> I see that most of those directories *do NOT* have a __init__.py, so
>> they are not packages and cannot be imported that way.
>>
>> Of course this leaves unanswered the question of *how* you are supposed
>> to import that code.   I've never used PythonCard so I can't help
>> further, but I suggest looking at the documentation and examples
>> supplied.  And perhaps waiting for someone with experience with
>> PythonCard to answer.
>>
>> Gary Herron
>>
>> P.S. It is usually a waste of time to tell us that something fails
>> without telling us *how* it fails.  (Cut and paste the error message
>> always, and the traceback usually.)  If you don't, you will usually get
>> a request to supply that information, and then have wast3ed the time for
>> one full round of message to the group.  Even in this case, I'm only
>> guessing how it failed for you.
>>
>>     
>>> I've checked and rechecked to make sure that the spellings are proper
>>> and that the tools, the codeEditor directory, and codeEditor.py, and
>>> the class CodeEditor all exists and yet idle keep complaining that it
>>> can't import from PythonCard.tools.
>>>       
>>> What's going on?  (Running Python2.5 under WinXP).
>>>       
>>> Regards,
>>> --
>>> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>>>       
>
> Thank you very much.  I didn't know about the __init__.py
> requirement.  Appreciate it.
Actually I should have added that there ways to import such things, and 
PythonCard must be using some such method itself.  You can manipulate 
the sys.path variable, or directly call the import mechanism using the 
builtin __import__, or use a suppled "imp" module.    However, you 
should not have to do any such thing to use PythonCard.  It should do 
them in for you.