SF patch #1438387, PEP 328: relative and absolute imports. - IMPORT_NAME takes an extra argument from the stack: the relativeness of the import. Only passed to __import__ when it's not -1. - __import__() takes an optional 5th argument for the same thing; it __defaults to -1 (old semantics: try relative, then absolute) - 'from . import name' imports name (be it module or regular attribute) from the current module's *package*. Likewise, 'from .module import name' will import name from a sibling to the current module. - Importing from outside a package is not allowed; 'from . import sys' in a toplevel module will not work, nor will 'from .. import sys' in a (single-level) package. - 'from __future__ import absolute_import' will turn on the new semantics for import and from-import: imports will be absolute, except for from-import with dots. Includes tests for regular imports and importhooks, parser changes and a NEWS item, but no compiler-package changes or documentation changes.

--- a/Include/Python-ast.h	Tue Feb 28 12:11:57 2006 +0000
+++ b/Include/Python-ast.h	Tue Feb 28 16:09:29 2006 +0000
@@ -159,6 +159,7 @@
                 struct {
                         identifier module;
                         asdl_seq *names;
+                        int level;
                 } ImportFrom;
                 
                 struct {
@@ -371,8 +372,8 @@
                    *arena);
 stmt_ty Assert(expr_ty test, expr_ty msg, int lineno, PyArena *arena);
 stmt_ty Import(asdl_seq * names, int lineno, PyArena *arena);
-stmt_ty ImportFrom(identifier module, asdl_seq * names, int lineno, PyArena
-                   *arena);
+stmt_ty ImportFrom(identifier module, asdl_seq * names, int level, int lineno,
+                   PyArena *arena);
 stmt_ty Exec(expr_ty body, expr_ty globals, expr_ty locals, int lineno, PyArena
              *arena);
 stmt_ty Global(asdl_seq * names, int lineno, PyArena *arena);