I need to make one function in a module platform-independent by offering several implementations, without changing any files that import it. The following works:
do_it = getattr(__import__(__name__), "do_on_" + sys.platform)
...but breaks if the module is put into a package.
An alternative would be an if/elif with hard-coded calls to the others in do_it().
Anything better?
Put the code for platform support in different files in your package. Then add this to the file people are supposed to import from:
if sys.platform.startswith("win"):
from ._windows_support import *
elif sys.platform.startswith("linux"):
from ._unix_support import *
else:
raise ImportError("my module doesn't support this system")
Use globals()['do_on_' + platform] instead of the getattr call and your original idea should work whether this is inside a package or not.
Dive Into Python offers the exceptions alternative.
