Question

I have a module that is specifically Python 3. What’s the best way to ensure that if someone tries importing it in Python 2 that it blows up/raises some sort of exception?

Right now I have:

# all my imports that I need, ex:
import sys

# blow up if not python 3
if sys.version_info.major < 3:
    sys.exit("This is not Python 3")

But I don’t really like the extra import (if my module doesn’t need sys it has to import it for the version check), and this just doesn’t quite “feel right”. Is there a better/more idomatic way?

Answer 1

Don’t sys.exit, it makes other developers want to stab you in the face.

Simply throw either an ImportError or some Py3kCompatible error of your making.