Why can't I import from a module alias?

Question

I just stumbled across this unexpected behavior in python (both 2.7 and 3.x):

>>> import re as regexp
>>> regexp


        

Answer 1

When from import is used python tries to look in the from file to import what you have requested. This might make it clearer.

import re as regexp

from regexp import search 

This essentially asks python to look in a file called 'regexp' which it can't find. This is why the alias won't work.