from string import *

what's the point of doing it this way rather than 'import string' ?

    import X imports the module X, and creates a reference to that module in the current namespace. Or in other words, after you’ve run this statement, you can use X.name to refer to things defined in module X.

    from X import * imports the module X, and creates references in the current namespace to all public objects defined by that module (that is, everything that doesn’t have a name starting with “_”). Or in other words, after you’ve run this statement, you can simply use a plain name to refer to things defined in module X. But X itself is not defined, so X.name doesn’t work. And if name was already defined, it is replaced by the new version. And if name in X is changed to point to some other object, your module won’t notice.

    from X import a, b, c imports the module X, and creates references in the current namespace to the given objects. Or in other words, you can now use a and b and c in your program.

    Finally, X = __import__(‘X’) works like import X, with the difference that you 1) pass the module name as a string, and 2) explicitly assign it to a variable in your current namespace.

How do I google?