Why is "import *" bad?

python python-import
Software Enthusiastic picture Software Enthusiastic · Mar 5, 2010 · Viewed 55.9k times · Source

It is recommended to not to use import * in Python.

Can anyone please share the reason for that, so that I can avoid it doing next time?

Answer

gruszczy picture gruszczy · Mar 5, 2010

  • Because it puts a lot of stuff into your namespace (might shadow some other object from previous import and you won't know about it).

  • Because you don't know exactly what is imported and can't easily find from which module a certain thing was imported (readability).

  • Because you can't use cool tools like pyflakes to statically detect errors in your code.

Related questions

How to import other Python files?

How do I import other files in Python? How exactly can I import a specific python file like import file.py? How can I import a folder instead of a specific file? I want to load a Python file dynamically …

Read More
Importing files from different folder

I have the following folder structure. application ├── app │   └── folder │   └── file.py └── app2 └── some_folder └── some_file.py I want to import some functions from file.py in some_file.py. I've tried from application.app.folder.file import func_name …

Read More
Python error "ImportError: No module named"

Python is installed in a local directory. My directory tree looks like this: (local directory)/site-packages/toolkit/interface.py My code is in here: (local directory)/site-packages/toolkit/examples/mountain.py To run the example, I write python mountain.py, …

Read More