My apologies for the tone of my remark.  I am grateful to you and others
who donate their time to develop the code.

I'm attaching the wrapper code that I created to work around the problem.

Phillip

def expander(paths='./*'):
   """
   OVERVIEW

   This function is a generator, i.e., creates an iterator that recursively
   searches a list of folders in an incremental fashion.  This approach is
   advantageous when the folder tree(s) to be searched are large and the
item of
   interest is likely to be found early in the process.

   INPUTS

   `paths` must be either (a) a list of folder paths (each of which is a
string)
   or (b) a single string containing one or more folder paths separated by
the
   OS-specific path delimiter.

   Each path in `paths` must be either (a) an existing folder or (b) an
existing
   folder followed by '/*' or '\*'.  In case (a), the folder string is
copied
   from the input (`paths`) to the output result verbatim.  In case (b), the
   folder string is replaced by an expanded list that includes not only the
   base (the portion of the path that remains after the '/*' or '\*' has
been
   removed), but all subfolders as well.

   RETURN VALUES

   The returned value is an iterator.

   Invoking the `next` method of the iterator produces one folder path at a
   time.
   """

   if isinstance(paths, basestring):
      paths= paths.split(os.pathsep)

   elif not isinstance(paths, list):
      raise TypeError("`paths` must be either a string or a list of
strings.")

   found= set()

   for path in paths:
      if path.endswith('/*') or path.endswith('\*'):

         # A recursive search of subfolders is required:
         for item in os.walk(path[:-2]):
            base= os.path.abspath(item[0])
            new= [os.path.join(base, nested) for nested in item[1]]

            for item in new:
               if not item in found:
                  found.add(item)
                  yield item

      else:

         # No recursive search is required:
         if not item in found:
            found.add(item)
            yield item

   # end for path in paths

def find_module(module_name, in_folders=[]):
   """
   This function finds a module and return the fully-qualified file name.
   Folders from `in_folders`, if specified, are search first, followed by
   folders in the global `import_path` list.

   If any folder name in `in_folders` or `import_path` ends with an
asterisk,
   indicating that a recursive search is required, `files.expander` is
   invoked to create iterators that return one folder at a time, and
   `imp.find_module` is invoked separately for each of these folders.

   EXPLICIT INPUTS

   `module_name` is the unqualified name of the module to be found.

   `in_folders` is an optional list of additional folders to be searched
before
   the folders in `import_path` are searched.

   IMPLICIT INPUTS

   `import_path` is obtained from the global namespace.

   RETURN VALUES

   If `find_module` is able to find the requested module, it returns the
same
   three return values (`f`, `filename`, and `description`) that
   `imp.find_module` would return.
   """

   if isinstance(in_folders, basestring):
      in_folders= [in_folders]
   elif not isinstance(in_folders, list):
      raise TypeError("If specified, `in_folders` must be either a string
or a "
        "list of strings.  (A string is wrapped to produce a length-1
list).")

   if any([item.endswith('*') for item in in_folders ]) or \
      any([item.endswith('*') for item in import_path]):

      ex= None

      for folder in itertools.chain(
        expander(in_folders), expander(import_path)):
         try:
            return imp.find_module(module_name, in_folders + import_path)
         except Exception as ex:
            pass

      if ex:
         raise ex

   else:
      return imp.find_module(module_name, in_folders + import_path)

On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 10:32 AM Brett Cannon <report@bugs.python.org>
wrote:

>
> Brett Cannon <brett@python.org> added the comment:
>
> Saying "the available functionality is massively inefficient" is
> unnecessarily hostile towards those of us who actually wrote and maintain
> that code. Without diving into the code, chances are that requirement is
> there so that the C code can use macros to access the list as efficiently
> as possible.
>
> Now if you want to propose specific changes to importlib's code for it to
> work with iterables instead of just lists then we would be happy to review
> the pull request.
>
> ----------
>
> _______________________________________
> Python tracker <report@bugs.python.org>
> <https://bugs.python.org/issue34417>
> _______________________________________
>