why have to "from compiler import *"

[mark_galeck_spam_magnet]

Hi, why does

>>import compiler
compileFile("foo.py")

complain name 'compileFile' not defined. But

>>>from compiler import *

works. Why? (I did read the tutorial, it seems to say "import module"
should work.

Thank you, Mark

[John Purser]

On Mon, 2006-09-04 at 21:40 -0700, ma*********************@yahoo.com
wrote:

Hi, why does

>import compiler
compileFile("foo.py")

complain name 'compileFile' not defined. But

Because 'compileFile' is not defined. But I think you'll find that
compiler.compileFile IS defined.

John Purser

>

>>from compiler import *

works. Why? (I did read the tutorial, it seems to say "import module"
should work.

Thank you, Mark

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

ma*********************@yahoo.com wrote:

Hi, why does

>>>import compiler
compileFile("foo.py")

complain name 'compileFile' not defined.

Probably because it's not ?

import <modulenameimports the name <modulenamein the current
namespace. Then <modulenamelet you access all the names defined in
<modulenamenamespace. So in you're case, it should be:

>>>import compiler
compiler.compileFile("foo.py")

But

>>from compiler import *

works.

"from <modulenameimport <somename>" directly loads <somenameinto the
current namespace. The 'import *' loads all public names from
<modulename>. And FWIW it's usually considered bad style (potential
name clash, and can makes hard to tell where a name is defined...)

HTH
--
bruno desthuilliers
python -c "print '@'.join(['.'.join([w[::-1] for w in p.split('.')]) for
p in 'o****@xiludom.gro'.split('@')])"

[Paddy]

ma*********************@yahoo.com wrote:

Hi, why does

>import compiler
compileFile("foo.py")

complain name 'compileFile' not defined. But

>>from compiler import *

works. Why? (I did read the tutorial, it seems to say "import module"
should work.

Thank you, Mark

I did some ascii art to show what happenss to your namespace as you
import from a module in a few ways. (You'll need to view this in a
NON-proportional font).

You say you've read the docs at: http://docs.python.org/tut/node8.html
or http://docs.python.org/ref/import.html

Heres my 'art':

module1.py:
O-----------------O
|moduleFunc1 |
|moduleClass1 |
| class1Method1 |
| class1Method2 |
|moduleFunc2 |
|moduleVar1 |
|moduleVar2 |
O-----------------O

# Empty namespace:
\-----------------/
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
/-----------------\
import module1
# namespace becomes:
\-------------------------/
|module1.moduleFunc1 |
|module1.moduleClass1: |
| class1Method1 |
| class1Method2 |
|module1.moduleFunc2 |
|module1.moduleVar1 |
|module1.moduleVar2 |
/------------------------\

from module1 import *
# namespace becomes:
\-----------------/
|moduleFunc1 |
|moduleClass1 |
| class1Method1 |
| class1Method2 |
|moduleFunc2 |
|moduleVar1 |
|moduleVar2 |
/-----------------\

from module1 import moduleFunc1, muduleVar2
# namespace becomes:
\-----------------/
|moduleFunc1 |
|moduleVar2 |
| |
/-----------------\

from module1 import moduleClass1 as C1
# namespace becomes
\-----------------/
|C1 | # C1 === module1.moduleClass1
| |
/-----------------\

- Paddy.
P.S. I'm playing with http://www.jave.de
The Java Ascii Versatile Editor.

[Duncan Booth]

"Paddy" <pa*******@netscape.netwrote:

>
import module1
# namespace becomes:
\-------------------------/
|module1.moduleFunc1 |
|module1.moduleClass1: |
| class1Method1 |
| class1Method2 |
|module1.moduleFunc2 |
|module1.moduleVar1 |
|module1.moduleVar2 |
/------------------------\

It would be more accurate to say:
# namespace becomes
\-----------------/
|module1 |
| |
/-----------------\

[Paddy]

Duncan Booth wrote:

"Paddy" <pa*******@netscape.netwrote:

import module1
# namespace becomes:
\-------------------------/
|module1.moduleFunc1 |
|module1.moduleClass1: |
| class1Method1 |
| class1Method2 |
|module1.moduleFunc2 |
|module1.moduleVar1 |
|module1.moduleVar2 |
/------------------------\

It would be more accurate to say:
# namespace becomes
\-----------------/
|module1 |
| |
/-----------------\

Possibly, although I purposely wanted to give a flavour of how things
might be accessed.

- Paddy