What does a . in an import statement in Python mean?

I’m looking over the code for Python’s multiprocessing module, and it contains this line:

from ._multiprocessing import win32, Connection, PipeConnection

instead of

from _multiprocessing import win32, Connection, PipeConnection

the subtle difference being the period before _multiprocessing. What does that mean? Why the period?

Answer

That’s the syntax for explicit relative imports. It means import from the current package.