Commit 48367816 authored by Georg Brandl's avatar Georg Brandl

Manually merged r67583: move __import__ doc to the bottom.

parent f7d4874c
......@@ -8,59 +8,6 @@ The Python interpreter has a number of functions and types built into it that
are always available. They are listed here in alphabetical order.
.. function:: __import__(name[, globals[, locals[, fromlist[, level]]]])
.. index::
statement: import
module: imp
.. note::
This is an advanced function that is not needed in everyday Python
programming.
The function is invoked by the :keyword:`import` statement. It mainly exists
so that you can replace it with another function that has a compatible
interface, in order to change the semantics of the :keyword:`import`
statement. See the built-in module :mod:`imp`, which defines some useful
operations out of which you can build your own :func:`__import__` function.
For example, the statement ``import spam`` results in the following call:
``__import__('spam', globals(), locals(), [], -1)``; the statement
``from spam.ham import eggs`` results in ``__import__('spam.ham', globals(),
locals(), ['eggs'], -1)``. Note that even though ``locals()`` and ``['eggs']``
are passed in as arguments, the :func:`__import__` function does not set the
local variable named ``eggs``; this is done by subsequent code that is generated
for the import statement. (In fact, the standard implementation does not use
its *locals* argument at all, and uses its *globals* only to determine the
package context of the :keyword:`import` statement.)
When the *name* variable is of the form ``package.module``, normally, the
top-level package (the name up till the first dot) is returned, *not* the
module named by *name*. However, when a non-empty *fromlist* argument is
given, the module named by *name* is returned. This is done for
compatibility with the :term:`bytecode` generated for the different kinds of import
statement; when using ``import spam.ham.eggs``, the top-level package
:mod:`spam` must be placed in the importing namespace, but when using ``from
spam.ham import eggs``, the ``spam.ham`` subpackage must be used to find the
``eggs`` variable. As a workaround for this behavior, use :func:`getattr` to
extract the desired components. For example, you could define the following
helper::
def my_import(name):
mod = __import__(name)
components = name.split('.')
for comp in components[1:]:
mod = getattr(mod, comp)
return mod
*level* specifies whether to use absolute or relative imports. The default is
``-1`` which indicates both absolute and relative imports will be attempted.
``0`` means only perform absolute imports. Positive values for *level* indicate
the number of parent directories to search relative to the directory of the
module calling :func:`__import__`.
.. function:: abs(x)
Return the absolute value of a number. The argument may be an
......@@ -1220,6 +1167,59 @@ are always available. They are listed here in alphabetical order.
True
.. function:: __import__(name[, globals[, locals[, fromlist[, level]]]])
.. index::
statement: import
module: imp
.. note::
This is an advanced function that is not needed in everyday Python
programming.
The function is invoked by the :keyword:`import` statement. It mainly exists
so that you can replace it with another function that has a compatible
interface, in order to change the semantics of the :keyword:`import`
statement. See the built-in module :mod:`imp`, which defines some useful
operations out of which you can build your own :func:`__import__` function.
For example, the statement ``import spam`` results in the following call:
``__import__('spam', globals(), locals(), [], -1)``; the statement
``from spam.ham import eggs`` results in ``__import__('spam.ham', globals(),
locals(), ['eggs'], -1)``. Note that even though ``locals()`` and ``['eggs']``
are passed in as arguments, the :func:`__import__` function does not set the
local variable named ``eggs``; this is done by subsequent code that is generated
for the import statement. (In fact, the standard implementation does not use
its *locals* argument at all, and uses its *globals* only to determine the
package context of the :keyword:`import` statement.)
When the *name* variable is of the form ``package.module``, normally, the
top-level package (the name up till the first dot) is returned, *not* the
module named by *name*. However, when a non-empty *fromlist* argument is
given, the module named by *name* is returned. This is done for
compatibility with the :term:`bytecode` generated for the different kinds of import
statement; when using ``import spam.ham.eggs``, the top-level package
:mod:`spam` must be placed in the importing namespace, but when using ``from
spam.ham import eggs``, the ``spam.ham`` subpackage must be used to find the
``eggs`` variable. As a workaround for this behavior, use :func:`getattr` to
extract the desired components. For example, you could define the following
helper::
def my_import(name):
mod = __import__(name)
components = name.split('.')
for comp in components[1:]:
mod = getattr(mod, comp)
return mod
*level* specifies whether to use absolute or relative imports. The default is
``-1`` which indicates both absolute and relative imports will be attempted.
``0`` means only perform absolute imports. Positive values for *level* indicate
the number of parent directories to search relative to the directory of the
module calling :func:`__import__`.
.. rubric:: Footnotes
.. [#] Specifying a buffer size currently has no effect on systems that don't have
......
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