This module adds the ability to import Python modules (*.py,
*.py[co]) and packages from ZIP-format archives. It is usually
not needed to use the zipimport module explicitly; it is
automatically used by the builtin import mechanism for
sys.path items that are paths to ZIP archives.
Typically, sys.path is a list of directory names as strings. This
module also allows an item of sys.path to be a string naming a ZIP
file archive. The ZIP archive can contain a subdirectory structure to
support package imports, and a path within the archive can be specified to
only import from a subdirectory. For example, the path
/tmp/example.zip/lib/ would only import from the
lib/ subdirectory within the archive.
Any files may be present in the ZIP archive, but only files .py and
.py[co] are available for import. ZIP import of dynamic modules
(.pyd, .so) is disallowed. Note that if an archive only
contains .py files, Python will not attempt to modify the archive
by adding the corresponding .pyc or .pyo file, meaning that
if a ZIP archive doesn't contain .pyc files, importing may be rather
slow.
Using the built-in reload() function will
fail if called on a module loaded from a ZIP archive; it is unlikely that
reload() would be needed, since this would imply that the ZIP
has been altered during runtime.
The available attributes of this module are:
exceptionZipImportError
Exception raised by zipimporter objects. It's a subclass of
ImportError, so it can be caught as ImportError,
too.
classzipimporter
The class for importing ZIP files. See
``zipimporter Objects'' (section 29.2.1)
for constructor details.
Written by James C.
Ahlstrom, who also provided an implementation. Python 2.3
follows the specification in PEP 273, but uses an
implementation written by Just van Rossum that uses the import
hooks described in PEP 302.
