caught in the import web again

[Ian Kelly]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 6:20 PM, Dave Angel <davea at davea.name> wrote:
> Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly at gmail.com> Wrote in message:
>> On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 3:17 PM, Dave Angel <davea at davea.name> wrote:
>
>>> In a module that might get tangled in a cycle, avoid global code
>>>  that depends on other modules.  Instead of putting such
>>>  initialization at top level, put inside a function that gets
>>>  called after all suspect imports are completed. (That function
>>>  has global keywords ).
>>
>> If the problem is that one of those modules would import the current
>> module, then "after all suspect imports are completed" basically means
>> after the current module has finished importing. So what would be
>> responsible for calling such a function?
>>
>
> If one builds a set of modules that cannot avoid recursive
>  imports, then one can ask the code that imports it to make a call
>  after importing. Or all that is needed to avoid exposing the mess
>  is that the top level not be part of the loops.

This would make the module less reusable though, since the first other
module to import it in one program might still be used in another
program but not be the first other module to import it. Or I suppose
for simplicity it could be required that all importers call the
initialization function, and have the function return immediately if
it's been called previously. However, I don't think there's any way to
do this without ending up with smelly code.