Relative imports with 'from . import'

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Accepted Answer

The leading dot means 'relative to the current package'. 'from . import utils' imports the utils module that lives in the same directory as the current file. 'from .. import utils' would go up one level to the parent package. The advantage over absolute imports is that relative imports work regardless of what the package is named at install time. If you rename your package, every relative import still works; absolute imports would break. The tradeoff is readability - relative imports can be confusing in deep package trees. PEP 8 recommends absolute imports for clarity, but relative imports are the right tool for tightly coupled submodules within the same package.