'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 tend to use only a few members of each module, so there's a lot of

from john import cleese
from terry import jones, gilliam

in my code. I'll import whole modules (such as os or wx) if I expect to be using most of the module and the module name is short. I'll also import whole modules if there is a name conflict or I want to remind the reader what that function is associated with.

import michael
import sarah

import wave

gov_speech = wave.open(sarah.palin.speechfile)
parrot_sketch = wave.open(michael.palin.justresting)

(I could use from wave import open as wave_open, but I figure that wave.open will be more familiar to the reader.