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[Python-ideas] Provide a way to import module without exec body

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Sat Dec 2 22:22:03 EST 2017 
On 2 December 2017 at 07:55, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:
> As for the completely separating the loading and execution, I don't have a
> need for what's being proposed so I don't have an opinion. I basically made
> sure Eric Snow structured specs so that lazy loading as currently supported
> works so I got what I wanted for basic lazy importing (short of the PyPI
> package I keep talking about writing to add a nicer API around lazy
> importing :) .

In PEP 451 terms, I can definitely see the value in having
CREATE_MODULE and EXEC_MODULE be separate opcodes (rather than having
them be jammed together in IMPORT_MODULE the way they are now). While
there'd still be some import machinery on the frame stack when the
module code ran (due to the way the "exec_module" API is defined),
there'd be substantially less of it.

There'd be some subtleties around handling backwards compatibility
with __import__ overrides (essentially, CREATE_MODULE would have to
revert to doing all the work, while EXEC_MODULE would become a no-op),
but the basic idea seems plausible.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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