Multiple aliases on one-line Python import

Question

Can I import module in Python giving it two or more aliases in one line?

With two lines this works:

from time import process_time as tic
from time import process_time as toc

This doesn't work, but I would want to be able to write something like:

from time import process_time as tic,toc

Can you explain why you would ever want to do this? In general it sounds like a fairly bad idea with no upside. Do you have a legitimate use-case? — smci, Jul 09 '18 at 02:01
@smci I would imagine they're trying to emulate `tic` and `toc` from languages they're more familiar with (matlab, R, etc), where functions with these names exist to measure elapsed time. — cs95, Jul 09 '18 at 04:36
@coldspeed: but `tic` and `toc` are different things, they're not the same alias. `tic`: Starts the timer and stores the start time and the message on the stack. `toc` Notes current timer, computes elapsed time since matching call to tic(); when quiet is FALSE, prints associated message and elapsed time. I was worried that the question was phrased much more generally than *"How do I declare multiple aliases to process_time as tic, toc?"* Other people might conclude this was a good and healthy thing to do in general. — smci, Jul 09 '18 at 04:53
Is this question about a) the general case how and whether to create multiple aliases for an import (definitely a bad idea) or b) just the OP's very specific case of trying to using multiple aliases to make code superficially look like the original R/Matlab for `tic/toc`? (still not a great idea - just learn the Python equivalent already)? — smci, Jul 09 '18 at 05:13

score 31 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 07 '16 at 15:49

31

You can do that with

from time import process_time as tic, process_time as toc

answered Apr 07 '16 at 15:49

Francesco

Thanks Francesco, this is what i was asking for. However I think that the two lines solution is the more readable one. – Danny Lessio Apr 07 '16 at 16:34

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 07 '16 at 15:50

7

You could do

from time import process_time as tic

toc = tic

answered Apr 07 '16 at 15:50

Ithilion

1

This is the best one. It makes it very explicit that it is an alias. – Antti Haapala -- Слава Україні Jul 09 '18 at 05:15

2 Answers2