Python "import" scope

Question

I am dealing with some python code automatically generated for me. I want to avoid manually editing these python files & hence this question/issue:

foo.py:

def foo():
  print "foo"

boo.py:

def boo():
  foo.foo()    # <-- global name 'foo' not defined
  print "boo"

bar.py:

import foo
import boo
def bar():
  boo.boo()
  print "bar"

Execution of:

python.exe bar.py

gives an error that boo did not find foo. But bar is importing both foo & boo. Shouldn't foo be automatically available to boo?

Is there a way to do so? As said boo.py is automatically generated for me & I want to avoid adding import foo to boo.py.

Thanks.

Answer 1

But bar is importing both foo & boo. Shouldn't foo be automatically available to boo?

No it shouldn't: import, like any other way to bind a name, binds that name in a single, specific scope, not "in all scopes you could ever possibly want it in".

Is there a way to do so? As said boo.py is automatically generated for me & I want to avoid adding import foo to boo.py

There's one very bad hack -- I wouldn't want to live with it (I'd much rather pour my energy into getting that totally broken code generator that makes boo.py fixed -- if it has such a huge bug as missing a crucial needed import, what other horrors can it have in store?!), but, hey, it ain't my funeral...;-)

Have bar.py start...:

import foo
import boo
import __builtin__
__builtin__.foo = foo

This way you've made identifier foo a "fake, artificial built-in name" (the only kind of name that is available from every scope, unless shadowed by other intervening bindings of the name in closer scopes) referring to the module foo.

NOT recommended procedure, just a temporary workaround for the horrible, glaring bug in the code generator that builds boo.py. Get that bug fixed so you can retire this hack ASAP!