further details of of Import.

The import function pulls in code from other files. It helps keep your code easy to work with by not cluttering it up with common library modules.

Sometimes you may import from files you created yourself. But otherwise, you will learn which functions you might want to use are located in which standard modules and import the ones you need. As you progress in the courses you will learn many of the most useful ones. And as you become comfortable using the Python documentation, you will be able to look up other ones when you need them.

This one seems really obvious, but actually the first step wasn't explained, so it tripped me up too. I thought I would post this for others with the same question. (While the answer above is correct, I felt like it was too generic. Sometimes it's the little things that cause all the confusion!)

So, why did the instructor have to write "from characters import Thief?" Where did that word "characters" come from? Why did I not have to write that phrase in the exercises in the next step?

The answers are simple. Because the instructor is running python in the shell, the class doesn't exist in the shell. It only exists in the separate file. To use the class in the shell, it has to be imported. To do that he calls the class referencing the file where it's written. What's the name of the file? characters.py! Thus... "from characters import Thief." Now we can use the class in the shell. Duh. So simple.