I don't understand the following from pep-0404
In Python 3, implicit relative imports within packages are no longer available - only absolute imports and explicit relative imports are supported. In addition, star imports (e.g. from x import *) are only permitted in module level code.
What is a relative import? In what other places star import was allowed in python2? Please explain with examples.
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python
python-3.x
Added another case to Michal Górny's answer:
Note that relative imports are based on the name of the current module. Since the name of the main module is always "__main__
", modules intended for use as the main module of a Python application must always use absolute imports.
For relative imports see the documentation. A relative import is when you import from a module relative to that module's location, instead of absolutely from sys.path
.
As for import *
, Python 2 allowed star imports within functions, for instance:
>>> def f():
... from math import *
... print sqrt
A warning is issued for this in Python 2 (at least recent versions). In Python 3 it is no longer allowed and you can only do star imports at the top level of a module (not inside functions or classes).
To support both Python 2 and Python 3, use explicit relative imports as below. They are relative to the current module. They have been supported starting from 2.5.
from .sister import foo
from . import brother
from ..aunt import bar
from .. import uncle
Source: Stackoverflow.com