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Should we use relative imports in test files?

Arguments against relative imports in test files

• Although the tests/ directory is a subpackage and therefore can use the relative import syntax, this change will prevent running tests from outside of the control package.
• Users of control necessarily write absolute imports (import control or from control...). Tests of the public API should follow the patterns of users.

Arguments in favor

• Relative import syntax is more concise.
• I might have missed something, but none of the CI jobs run the tests against a copy of control other than where they are located. In other words, "running tests from outside of the control package" is not done in practice, so not important to support.
• We are already using the relative import syntax in config_test.py.

For comparison, neither numpy nor scipy seem to be consistent: most of their tests are written using absolute imports (import numpy or import scipy etc.), but some tests use relative imports.

Conclusion

I like the generality in principle of keeping these as absolute imports, but practically both patterns seem good.