Importing 1.10

Import objects dynamically, lazily, "weakly", and more.

NEW in 1.10: @whenImported can now be used as a decorator for lazy imports

Need to import an object when all you’ve got is its name? Need to lazily import modules, such that they don’t actually get loaded until you use them? Want to have some code in a module that only gets run if another module is imported? Then you need the “Importing” toolkit.

Installing the toolkit (using "easy_install Importing" or "setup.py install") allows you to access the peak.util.imports module. This module was previously bundled for years inside of the general PEAK distribution, but is now available as a standalone module for your convenience.

The “Importing” toolkit does not install or use any special import hooks, and is compatible with zipfile imports, py2exe, etc. Lazy and weak imports should be compatible with almost any import hooks or hacks, as long as they have reasonable support for the reload() builtin. The dynamic import utilities, however, require only that __import__() work correctly, and so should work anywhere that normal Python imports work.

NOTE: The 1.9.2 release uses a new version of setuptools (0.6b3) that fixes a previous problem with .pth files on Windows with the Importing egg. See more info on how to fix your existing installation, if you experienced this problem with a previous version.

Python 2.3 users: If you are using weak or lazy importing with zipfiles (e.g. eggs) you must have Python 2.3.5. Lesser versions of 2.3 have a bug in the reload() implementation which prevents correct operation of weak and lazy imports for modules that are inside zipfiles.