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/Python/bltinmodule.c	Tue Feb 28 12:11:57 2006 +0000
+++ b/Python/bltinmodule.c	Tue Feb 28 16:09:29 2006 +0000
@@ -37,11 +37,13 @@
 	PyObject *globals = NULL;
 	PyObject *locals = NULL;
 	PyObject *fromlist = NULL;
+	int level = -1;
 
-	if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s|OOO:__import__",
-			&name, &globals, &locals, &fromlist))
+	if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s|OOOi:__import__",
+			&name, &globals, &locals, &fromlist, &level))
 		return NULL;
-	return PyImport_ImportModuleEx(name, globals, locals, fromlist);
+	return PyImport_ImportModuleLevel(name, globals, locals,
+					  fromlist, level);
 }
 
 PyDoc_STRVAR(import_doc,