What is import and use of it in python?

Question

I want to know how relative imports (in Python) are different than import. I have found lots of examples on internet explaining about the relative import but I want to know about the basic aspects of relative import that make it different than import.

Answer 1

(A module in python can be a file or directory. If it is a directory, it must have a __init__.py file module inside of it, so that the python interpreter recognizes it as a python module.)
Python code in one module gains access to the code in another module by the process of importing it. It is similar to #include in C at least in theory. But the it works is totally different. Just like in java importing a module in python (whether a library module or any other user defined module) makes the code within that module accessible to current module scope. Even if u import the module multiple times it is imported only once.. While importing a module the python path is searched for the module . If it is not present in it, the import statement combines two operations; it searches for the named module, then it binds the results of that search to a name in the local scope. The full path of the module is then is then appended to python path. You can take a look at all directory modules currently accessible by printing the sys.path.

import sys
print sys.path