'from X import a' versus 'import X; X.a'

Question

I\'ve seen some Python programmers use the following style fairly consistently (we\'ll call it style 1):

import some_module
# Use some_module.some_identifier in          


        

Answer 1

I find that the notation

from some_module import some_symbol

works best in most cases. Also, in case of name clash for the symbol, you can use:

from some_module import some_symbol as other_symbol

As the question states, it avoids rewriting the module name all the time, each time with a risk of mistyping it. I use the syntax:

import  module [as other_module]

Only in two cases:

1. I use too many of the module functions/objects to import them all
2. The module defines some symbol that may change during execution