Importlib, more verbosity please

[LukNmec]

BPO	18598
Nosy	@brettcannon

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/brettcannon'
closed_at = <Date 2013-08-12.17:29:45.327>
created_at = <Date 2013-07-30.10:30:44.412>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library']
title = 'Importlib, more verbosity please'
updated_at = <Date 2013-08-12.17:29:45.326>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/LukNmec'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2013-08-12.17:29:45.326>
actor = 'brett.cannon'
assignee = 'brett.cannon'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2013-08-12.17:29:45.327>
closer = 'brett.cannon'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2013-07-30.10:30:44.412>
creator = 'Luk\xc3\xa1\xc5\xa1.N\xc4\x9bmec'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 18598
keywords = []
message_count = 6.0
messages = ['193922', '193925', '193926', '193927', '193933', '194973']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['brett.cannon', 'python-dev', 'Luk\xc3\xa1\xc5\xa1.N\xc4\x9bmec']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'low'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue18598'
versions = ['Python 3.4']

[LukNmec]

Hello,

recently I filed this bugreport to Django, but they clarified this by pointing me to commits for new version of Django that uses python builtin importlib (import_module)

But since most of their import_module code is done like [import_module(x) for y if blahblah], it is very difficult for me to debug code where Django tries to import some package, and all I get back is message "relative imports require the 'package' argument"

This message tells me exactly nothing :), just that something somewhere, even 3rd party app tried to do relative imports ...

what did it import, with what parameters?

I edited this locally for debugging, and changed it to this:
"relative imports require the 'package' argument, package: %s" % name

This simple change of the message allowed me to find the problem in a few seconds..

Would you please consider adding something similar to importlib for better debugging?

Thank you :)

[brettcannon]

It could be changed to something like "the 'package' argument is required to perform a relative import for {!r}".format(name) . Would that have made it more clear?

[LukNmec]

Yes, absolutely,

that is what was I needed to debug it easily, the name parameter

Thank you :)

[LukNmec]

Also, please do not forget on backports for python 2.6+ :)

[brettcannon]

Sorry, I can't backport this change as it's not a bugfix but an enhancement and it could break someone's code who relies on the specific format of the exception message.

[python-dev]

New changeset 2294594fbe6c by Brett Cannon in branch 'default':
Closes issue bpo-18598: Have the exception message for
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/2294594fbe6c