PEP 8规定:

导入总是放在文件的顶部,就在任何模块注释和文档字符串之后,在模块全局变量和常量之前。

然而,如果我导入的类/方法/函数只在很少的情况下使用,那么在需要时进行导入肯定会更有效吗?

这不是:

class SomeClass(object):

    def not_often_called(self)
        from datetime import datetime
        self.datetime = datetime.now()

比这更有效率?

from datetime import datetime

class SomeClass(object):

    def not_often_called(self)
        self.datetime = datetime.now()

当前回答

可读性

除了启动性能外,本地化import语句还需要考虑可读性。例如,在我目前的第一个python项目中使用python行号1283到1296:

listdata.append(['tk font version', font_version])
listdata.append(['Gtk version', str(Gtk.get_major_version())+"."+
                 str(Gtk.get_minor_version())+"."+
                 str(Gtk.get_micro_version())])

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

xmltree = ET.parse('/usr/share/gnome/gnome-version.xml')
xmlroot = xmltree.getroot()
result = []
for child in xmlroot:
    result.append(child.text)
listdata.append(['Gnome version', result[0]+"."+result[1]+"."+
                 result[2]+" "+result[3]])

如果import语句在文件的顶部,我将不得不向上滚动很长一段距离,或按Home键,以找出ET是什么。然后我将不得不返回到第1283行继续阅读代码。

实际上,即使import语句像许多人那样位于函数(或类)的顶部,也需要向上和向下分页。

很少会显示Gnome版本号,因此在文件顶部导入会引入不必要的启动延迟。

其他回答

Module initialization only occurs once - on the first import. If the module in question is from the standard library, then you will likely import it from other modules in your program as well. For a module as prevalent as datetime, it is also likely a dependency for a slew of other standard libraries. The import statement would cost very little then since the module intialization would have happened already. All it is doing at this point is binding the existing module object to the local scope.

将这些信息与可读性参数结合起来,我会说import语句最好在模块范围内。

Putting the import statement inside of a function can prevent circular dependencies. For example, if you have 2 modules, X.py and Y.py, and they both need to import each other, this will cause a circular dependency when you import one of the modules causing an infinite loop. If you move the import statement in one of the modules then it won't try to import the other module till the function is called, and that module will already be imported, so no infinite loop. Read here for more - effbot.org/zone/import-confusion.htm

模块导入非常快,但不是即时的。这意味着:

将导入放在模块的顶部是可以的,因为这是一个微不足道的成本,只需要支付一次。 将导入放在函数中会导致对该函数的调用花费更长的时间。

所以如果你关心效率,把进口放在最上面。只有在分析显示有帮助的情况下,才将它们移动到函数中(您进行了分析,以查看哪里可以最好地提高性能,对吗??)


我所见过的执行惰性导入的最佳理由是:

可选的库支持。如果您的代码有多个使用不同库的路径,如果没有安装可选库,请不要中断。 在插件的__init__.py中,该插件可能被导入,但实际上没有使用。例如Bazaar插件,它们使用bzrlib的惰性加载框架。

虽然PEP鼓励在模块顶部导入,但在其他级别导入并不会出错。这表明进口应该在顶部,但也有例外。

在使用模块时加载模块是一种微优化。导入缓慢的代码可以在以后进行优化,如果这会产生相当大的差异的话。

不过,您可以在尽可能靠近顶部的位置引入标志,以便有条件地导入,允许用户使用配置导入所需的模块,同时仍然立即导入所有内容。

尽快导入意味着如果任何导入(或导入的导入)缺失或有语法错误,程序将失败。如果所有导入都发生在所有模块的顶部,则python分两步工作。编译。运行。

内置模块可以在任何导入它们的地方工作,因为它们设计得很好。您编写的模块应该是相同的。将导入移动到顶部或它们的第一次使用位置有助于确保没有副作用,并且代码正在注入依赖项。

无论您是否将导入放在顶部,当导入放在顶部时,代码都应该仍然可以工作。所以从立即导入开始,然后根据需要进行优化。

I do not aspire to provide complete answer, because others have already done this very well. I just want to mention one use case when I find especially useful to import modules inside functions. My application uses python packages and modules stored in certain location as plugins. During application startup, the application walks through all the modules in the location and imports them, then it looks inside the modules and if it finds some mounting points for the plugins (in my case it is a subclass of a certain base class having a unique ID) it registers them. The number of plugins is large (now dozens, but maybe hundreds in the future) and each of them is used quite rarely. Having imports of third party libraries at the top of my plugin modules was a bit penalty during application startup. Especially some thirdparty libraries are heavy to import (e.g. import of plotly even tries to connect to internet and download something which was adding about one second to startup). By optimizing imports (calling them only in the functions where they are used) in the plugins I managed to shrink the startup from 10 seconds to some 2 seconds. That is a big difference for my users.

所以我的答案是否定的,不要总是把导入放在模块的顶部。