Question

i have the following script

import getopt, sys opts, args = getopt.getopt(sys.argv[1:], 'h:s') for key,value in opts:     print key, '=>', value 

if i name this getopt.py and run it doesn’t work as it tries to import itself

is there a way around this, so i can keep this filename but specify on import that i want the standard python lib and not this file?

Solution based on Vinko’s answer:

import sys sys.path.reverse() from getopt import getopt  opts, args = getopt(sys.argv[1:], 'h:s')  for key,value in opts:     print key, '=>', value 

Answer 1

You shouldn’t name your scripts like existing modules. Especially if standard.

That said, you can touch sys.path to modify the library loading order

~# cat getopt.py print 'HI' ~# python Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Jul 31 2008, 17:28:52) [GCC 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)] on linux2 Type 'help', 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information. >>> import sys >>> import getopt HI  ~# python Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Jul 31 2008, 17:28:52) [GCC 4.2.3 (Ubuntu 4.2.3-2ubuntu7)] on linux2 Type 'help', 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information. >>> import sys >>> sys.path.remove('') >>> import getopt >>> dir(getopt) ['GetoptError', '__all__', '__builtins__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__name__', 'do_longs', 'do_shorts', 'error', 'getopt', 'gnu_getopt', 'long_has_args', 'os', 'short_has_arg'] 

In addition, you may wish to avoid the full import and do it differently, like this:

import sys sys.path.remove('') from getopt import getopt sys.path.insert(0,'') opts, args = getopt(sys.argv[1:], 'h:s') for key,value in opts:     print key, '=>', value