[Tutor] Understanding (Complex) Modules

[David Hutto]

--- On Wed, 3/3/10, Wayne Watson <sierra_mtnview at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

From: Wayne Watson <sierra_mtnview at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [Tutor] Understanding (Complex) Modules
To: tutor at python.org
Date: Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 8:24 PM

First a little preamble before my questions.

Most of my work in Python has required modifying a program that uses modules that were imported by the original program. I've made some use of modules on a command line like math, and have used the idea of a qualifier.  On occasion, I've used examples from matplotlib that required from matplotlib.image import AxesImage. Further, I've created some simple classes, and produced  objects with them. No use of inheritance though.  So far so good.  In a few places, it is said modules are objects. I'm slightly puzzled by that, but in some way it seems reasonable from the standpoint of period notation. So far I have not created a module.

In Lutz's and Ascher's Learning Python, ed. 2, chap. 16, they describe the following example, among others:

module2.py as

print "starting to load ..."
import sys
def func(): pass
class klass: pass
print "done loading."

Their description of its use is quite readable.  It shows that there is some more to a module than a list of defs, for example.

Here comes the questions. Recently I began to use matplotlib, scipy, and pylab, mostly matplotlib. I've ground out a few useful pieces of code, but I'm fairly baffled by the imports required to get at various elements, of say, matplotlib (MPL).  Some of the MPL examples use of imports make sense, but how the writer pulled in the necessary elements is not.  How does one go about understanding the capabilities of such modules? MPL seems to have a lot of lower level components. Some of them are laid out over numerous pages as in the form of a, say, English language, description. How does one decipher this stuff.  For example, open the module in an editor and start looking at the organization? I thinkthe so called MPL guide ins 900 pages long. Even the numpy guide (reference?), I believe borders on 1000 pages. There must be some way to untangle these complex modules, I would think. Some of the tutorials seem nothing more than a template to follow for a
 particular problem.  So far, looking at the plentiful number of examples of MPL, and probably some of the other modules mentioned above have not provided a lot of insight.

 Is there some relationship between modules and objects that I'm not seeing that could be of value?




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