raghu raghu wrote: > Actually i installed python 2.5 i ran this script and its showing error > it could not import statsout. why is it so?
statsout is a *hypothetical* module used for an example only. The statsout module does not actually exist. When Dive Into Python wants you to type in an example, it will shown either as lines at the Python interpreter prompt (>>>), or it will be an example in a Python source file included with the Dive Into Python examples bundle. If you look at the example using the imaginary statsout module in section 4.12, which is not included in any Python source file in the Dive Into Python examples bundle, you will see the example is not referenced in a file, nor is it shown as being typed at the Python interpreter prompt. If, however, you had an actual statsout module in your sys.path, you could import it. And it that module had top level functions functions that took one argument and had function names like "output_text" and "output_pdf" and "output_html," then the example would work if you typed it in. The example is just showing a hypothetical case of a very simple dispatcher. The example is asking you to imagine *if* you had a statsout module, and *if* that module had functions by those names in it. Dive Into Python uses the getattr function in the apihelper.py example you are currently reading about. In the next chapter, a more complicated example is shown where getattr is used in a dispatcher which finds, not just a function by name, but a class by name and dispatches that class object to create a new object of that class. So the statsout *imaginary* example is just preparing you for a more complicated *real life* dispatcher example in the next chapter. Hypothetical examples are often shown in programming books to prepare you for more complicated real life examples. -- Sincerely, Chris Calloway http://www.seacoos.org office: 332 Chapman Hall phone: (919) 962-4323 mail: Campus Box #3300, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
