bazel-contrib / bazel-contrib/rules_python
Add Gazelle support for `importlib.import_module`?
- Dominant language
- Starlark
- Stars
- 688
- Forks
- 721
- Avg merge
- 15h 7m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 76
Description
# 🚀 feature request
### Relevant Rules
+ gazelle
### Description
First off, I want to say that I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not. So feel free to shoot it down 🤣.
In https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_python/pull/1931#issuecomment-2141255218, it was said that the gazelle parser only needs to know about a subset of the python language:
> + comments
> + `if __name__ == "__main__"`
> + `from foo import bar`
> + `import foo`
However, there's another way to import other python code: [`importlib.import_module()`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/importlib.html#importlib.import_module).
**Should Gazelle parse these and attempt to add dependencies for them?**
#### Issues
There are a couple pretty big issues with trying to do so:
1. In my experience, `importlib.import_module` is typically used as a way to work around circular dependencies. So having Gazelle parse them would just result in a broken build, probably frustrating users more than helping.
2. There's no way to figure out what the runtime value would be.
+ So we could anything that's a string constant:
`import_module("foo.bar.baz")`
but not
`module = input("Enter a module name: "); import_module(module)` or even
`module = "foo.bar.baz"; import_module(module)`
#### Benefits
Umm... I guess if `import_module` is used in a _very specific_ way, then it would make making build files easier.
### Describe the solution you'd like
N/A
### Describe alternatives you've considered
Manually adding dependencies after running Gazelle. Not a big deal, IMO.
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start with the Gazelle parser and the discussion in rules_python#1931 referenced by the issue. Assess constant-string versus dynamic importlib.import_module calls against the circular-dependency concerns, then establish the expected behavior; done means the proposal has a decided scope and an agreed validation path.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- build-system
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100