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Qualification

As explained in The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition

Qualification is the practice of accessing a name through a containing module or namespace qualifier.

Qualification accesses a name by prefixing it with the containing module: mymath.pi or mymath.area(2). This keeps similarly named definitions distinct across modules. section 10.2

Use qualification to distinguish module attributes and control which names become directly available:

  • Definitions inside mymath can refer to another definition there without repeating the module qualifier. section 10.2
  • from mymath import pi exposes pi directly, but leaves area qualified unless it is imported separately. section 10.2

How The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition covers it

How deep it goes
Explains qualified attributes, intra-module access, and selective imports, but defers broader scoping rules.
Examples
Demonstrates mymath.pi, mymath.area(2), bare-name NameError results, and from mymath import pi.
What you can do after
Apply it via Python module imports to access definitions explicitly and avoid ambiguous bare names.
How it connects
Connects modules with attributes, imports, name safety, and scoping rules.
Cover of The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition
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Related concepts

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of The Quick Python Book, Fourth Edition. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.