Variations on Import

from module import

  • This imports selective symbols from a module into the current namespace
     from spam import foo, bar
     foo()           # No longer need module prefix
  • Or you can import all of the symbols into the current namespace
     from spam import *
  • Note: But this does not import symbols starting with an underscore (_)

reload module

  • This reloads a module. For example:
     reload spam
  • Useful for debugging, but somewhat problematic if you aren't careful.
  • References to classes and other objects in the old module are not updated.
  • Generally doesn't work with extension modules (written in C).
<<< O'Reilly OSCON 2000, Introduction to Python, Slide 105
July 17, 2000, beazley@cs.uchicago.edu
>>>