I'm running Python 3.6 on Ubuntu 16.04

I don't know if this should qualify as a bug, but I noticed the following behavior difference in the (contrived?) scenario of directly importing '__init__' from a package:

## Setup ##

mkdir app
echo 'print(f"Executing app/__init__.py as {__name__}")' > app/__init__.py

## Native: executes __init__ *once* ##

python -c 'from app import __init__'
# Output:
# Executing app/__init__.py as app

## Importlib: executes __init__ *twice* ##

python -c "import importlib; importlib.import_module('.__init__', 'app')"
# Output:
# Executing app/__init__.py as app
# Executing app/__init__.py as app.__init__

Note in addition that absolute import (either with importlib or native) executes '__init__' twice.

`from app import __init__` is equivalent to `importlib.import_module('app').__init__`.

`importlib.import_module('.__init__', 'app')` is equivalent to `import app.__init__`.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, and thanks for clarifying!

So essentially what I am getting by `from app import __init__` is the `__init__` method of the module object bound to the name `app`.

However if I have a submodule `app/myapp.py`, `from app import myapp` will import it and bind it to the name `myapp`, whereas `importlib.import_module('app').myapp` raises AttributeError, so I guess the two forms not totally equivalent...


Anyways, I'll investigate deeper before creating an issue henceforth :)

The difference is that attribute "__init__" existed. If you set the "myapp" global in the "app" module, the file "app/myapp.py" will be not imported.