Question

I’m running Python 2.6.6 on Ubuntu 10.10.

I understand that we can import a module and bind that module to a different name, e.g.

import spam as eggs

also,

from eggs import spam as foo

My problem is that when running the PySide examples, the following import code does not run:

import PySide as PyQt4
from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui

It generates an import error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named PyQt4

Clearly, according to the Python interpreter the above code is incorrect, my question is why is it incorrect or rather why doesn’t this work?

Answer 1

import and from are a special syntax.

They look for a module name, which means a file in sys.path which starts with the module name.

And it seems like you don’t have PyQt4 installed, so it will fail.

The fact that you have a variable called PyQt4 in your namespace after running import PySide as PyQt4 does not change anything, Python is still looking for an actual module called PyQt4 when you do from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui.

Try doing

import PySide as PyQt4
QtCore = PyQt4.QtCore
QtGui = PyQt4.QtGui

or

import PySide as PyQt4
from PySide import QtCore, QtGui

That should be equivalent.