interactive session in this sessionfor examplethe second print statement in script py was changed in another window to print * between the time of the first import and the reload call--hence the different result the reload function expects the name of an already loaded module objectso you have to have successfully imported module once before you reload it (if the import reported an erroryou can' yet reload and must import againnotice that reload also expects parentheses around the module object namewhereas import does not reload is function that is calledand import is statement that' why you must pass the module name to reload as an argument in parenthesesand that' why you get back an extra output line when reloading--the last output line is just the display representation of the reload call' return valuea python module object we'll learn more about using functions in general in for nowwhen you hear "function,remember that parentheses are required to run call version skew notepython moved the reload built-in function to the imp standard library module it still reloads files as beforebut you must import it in order to use it in xrun an import imp and use imp reload( )or run from imp import reload and use reload( )as shown here we'll discuss import and from statements in the next sectionand more formally later in this book if you are working in python xreload is available as built-in functionso no import is required in python and reload is available in both forms--built-in and module function--to aid the transition to in other wordsreloading is still available in xbut an extra line of code is required to fetch the reload call the move in was likely motivated in part by some well-known issues involving reload and from statements that we'll encounter in the next section in shortnames loaded with from are not directly updated by reloadbut names accessed with an import statement are if your names don' seem to change after reloadtry using import and mod ule attribute name references instead the grander module storyattributes imports and reloads provide natural program launch option because import operations execute files as last step in the broader scheme of thingsthoughmodules serve the role of libraries of toolsas you'll learn in detail in part the basic idea is straightforwardthougha module is mostly just package of variable namesknown as namespaceand the names within that package are called attributes an attribute is simply variable name that is attached to specific object (like modulein more concrete termsimporters gain access to all the names assigned at the top level of module' file these names are usually assigned to tools exported by the module how you run programs