Should I use `import os.path` or `import os`?

Question

According to the official documentation, os.path is a module. Thus, what is the preferred way of importing it?

# Should I always import it explicitly?
import os.path

Or...

# Is importing os enough?
import os

Please DON'T answer "importing os works for me". I know, it works for me too right now (as of Python 2.6). What I want to know is any official recommendation about this issue. So, if you answer this question, please post your references.

Answer 1

Interestingly enough, importing os.path will import all of os. try the following in the interactive prompt:

import os.path
dir(os)

The result will be the same as if you just imported os. This is because os.path will refer to a different module based on which operating system you have, so python will import os to determine which module to load for path.

reference

With some modules, saying import foo will not expose foo.bar, so I guess it really depends the design of the specific module.

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In general, just importing the explicit modules you need should be marginally faster. On my machine:

import os.path: 7.54285810068e-06 seconds

import os: 9.21904878972e-06 seconds

These times are close enough to be fairly negligible. Your program may need to use other modules from os either now or at a later time, so usually it makes sense just to sacrifice the two microseconds and use import os to avoid this error at a later time. I usually side with just importing os as a whole, but can see why some would prefer import os.path to technically be more efficient and convey to readers of the code that that is the only part of the os module that will need to be used. It essentially boils down to a style question in my mind.