5 PEP 338: Executing Modules as Scripts

The -m switch added in Python 2.4 to execute a module as a script gained a few more abilities. Instead of being implemented in C code inside the Python interpreter, the switch now uses an implementation in a new module, runpy.

The runpy module implements a more sophisticated import mechanism so that it's now possible to run modules in a package such as pychecker.checker. The module also supports alternative import mechanisms such as the zipimport module. This means you can add a .zip archive's path to sys.path and then use the -m switch to execute code from the archive.

See Also:

PEP 338, Executing modules as scripts
PEP written and implemented by Nick Coghlan.

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