On 17 January 2016 at 23:37, boB Stepp <robertvst...@gmail.com> wrote: > 1) Is using pkgutil.get_data() the way I should be reading my data files?
Generally yes, although it may be unnecessary. The main purpose of pkgutil.get_data is to transparently handle the case where your packages are imported from a zip file. The initial motivation for this was setuptools eggs but there are other reasons you might want to import your code from a zip file. > 2) The book says that this method will return "...a byte string > containing the raw contents of the file." (From page 409) Can I do all > of the normal things on this returned object that I could do if I used > "with open..."? Is it iterable? [OK, I confess up front. I am being > lazy here. I *could* create a file and try this out to see what > happens, so I will understand if I get chided (or worse!).] Just try it out :) > 3) Should I be using relative imports in my projects? I don't use relative imports. The supposed advantage of relative imports is that you can easily move a package to a different location in the import hierarchy. For example if you have a package called stuff and the modules inside stuff use relative imports to access each other then you could move stuff inside another package called things and have it be a package called things.stuff without needing to change the import lines. Personally I think that fixing up a few import lines is no big deal. I'd rather choose exactly where things is going to go in the import hierarchy and be done with it. If I need to move it into another package then I'll have to change the import statements inside things but that's easy to do. So I prefer absolute imports since they're less ambiguous. -- Oscar _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
