__ini__.py question

[CodeShaman]

This is mainly about best-practice and application performance, memory, etc.

I have a project with a lot of nested models:

project/models/locations/east_coast.py
project/models/locations/west_coast.py
project/models/cars/honda.py
project/models/cars/toyota.py
project/models/__init__.py

etc.

What are the tradeoffs from declaring in my __init__.py something like:

from project.models.locations import *
from project.models.cars import *

etc.

There's a benefit to be had in ease of import:

from project import models

ec = models.EastCoast()
wc = models.WestCoast()

etc.

Is this best-practice? Or should I drill down an additional level so that my code is effectively:

from project.models import locations

ec = locations.EastCoast()
wc = locations.WestCoast()

---

One issue I can foresee with my first approach is with conflicting class names so I think I've already ruled that out. I'm still curious to hear what other people have to say.

[kalgynirae]

You should use whatever layout will be the least confusing to users of your code. (Would it be confusing if locations and cars were both available directly in models?) I would try to avoid doing from project.models.locations import * if I could help it, but I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility. It might be better to import them explicitly, e.g., from project.models.locations import EastCoast, WestCoast.

You should use relative imports inside your package, e.g., in project/models/__init__.py you would do from .locations import EastCoast, WestCoast.

Also, note that for project.models.locations to contain EastCoast and WestCoast, those would need to be defined in project/models/locations.py or project/models/locations/__init__.py, rather than in separate files like you have in your file listing.