beyond top level package error in relative import

Question

It seems there are already quite some questions here about relative import in python 3, but after going through many of them I still didn\'t find the answer for my issue. s

Answer 1

In my humble opinion, I understand this question in this way:

[CASE 1] When you start an absolute-import like

python -m test_A.test

or

import test_A.test

or

from test_A import test

you're actually setting the import-anchor to be test_A, in other word, top-level package is test_A . So, when we have test.py do from ..A import xxx, you are escaping from the anchor, and Python does not allow this.

[CASE 2] When you do

python -m package.test_A.test

or

from package.test_A import test

your anchor becomes package, so package/test_A/test.py doing from ..A import xxx does not escape the anchor(still inside package folder), and Python happily accepts this.

In short:

• Absolute-import changes current anchor (=redefines what is the top-level package);
• Relative-import does not change the anchor but confines to it.

Furthermore, we can use full-qualified module name(FQMN) to inspect this problem.

Check FQMN in each case:

• [CASE2] test.__name__ = package.test_A.test
• [CASE1] test.__name__ = test_A.test

So, for CASE2, an from .. import xxx will result in a new module with FQMN=package.xxx, which is acceptable.

While for CASE1, the .. from within from .. import xxx will jump out of the starting node(anchor) of test_A, and this is NOT allowed by Python.