Chapter Summary

This chapter introduced Python’s package import model—an optional but useful way to explicitly list part of the directory path leading up to your modules. Package imports are still relative to a directory on your module import search path, but rather than relying on Python to traverse the search path manually, your script gives the rest of the path to the module explicitly.

As we’ve seen, packages not only make imports more meaningful in larger systems, but also simplify import search path settings (if all cross-directory imports are relative to a common root directory) and resolve ambiguities when there is more than one module of the same name (including the name of the enclosing directory in a package import helps distinguish between them).