Difference between import numpy and import numpy as np

Question

I understand that when possible one should use

import numpy as np

This helps keep away any conflict due to namespaces. But I have noticed that

Answer 1

Well quite an old post but here are my 2 cents over the explanation provided by others.

numpy (refer git repository) package have various subpackages, f2py is one of them other are as core, ma etc

If you refer the init.py in numpy package it has imports like -

from . import core etc 

but it's not having any import for f2py subpackage. That's the reason that a statement like

import numpy as np
np.f2py

won't work but

import numpy as np
np.core

will work.