[Python-Dev] Re: PEP 328 -- relative and multi-line import

[Aahz]

On Mon, Apr 05, 2004, Neil Schemenauer wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 05, 2004 at 01:36:24PM -0400, Aahz wrote:
>>
>> Your intuition is wrong.  From package's __init__.py, ``from .`` refers
>> to package's parent; to get back into the package, you need to use
>> ``from .package``.
> 
> That's confusing.  I expected '.' to refer to the current package,
> just as '.' refers to the current directory in most file systems.  I
> think that meaning would be more useful in practice as well.
> Imagine a package where '.' means the current package:
> 
>     # __init__.py ###################################
>     from .a import A
>     from .b import B
>     #################################################
> 
>     # a.py ##########################################
>     from .utils import x, y
>     class A:
>         ...
>     #################################################
> 
>     # b.py ##########################################
>     from .utils import x, z
>     class B:
>         ...
>     #################################################
> 
>     # utils.py ######################################
>     def x():
>         ...
>     def y():
>         ...
>     def z():
>         ...
>     #################################################
> 
> Notice that the modules that make up the package do not need to know
> what the package is called.  That was one of the major benefits of
> relative imports that I was looking forward to.
> 
> Perhaps I misunderstand the PEP.

Not sure.  The only difference between your semantics and mine lies in
__init__.py; there -- and only there -- is where the need exists to know
the package name.  You're making the mistake of thinking that
__init__.py exists in the same namespace as a.py, b.py, and utils.py --
it doesn't.  Now, we could in theory use your semantics due to
"practicality beats purity", but it seems to me that it would lead to
more mistakes in understanding how packages work.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

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