old_contents: # encoding: utf-8
  """
  A simple utility to import something by its string name.
  
  Authors:
  
  * Brian Granger
  """
  
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  #  Copyright (C) 2008-2011  The IPython Development Team
  #
  #  Distributed under the terms of the BSD License.  The full license is in
  #  the file COPYING, distributed as part of this software.
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # Functions and classes
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  def import_item(name):
      """Import and return ``bar`` given the string ``foo.bar``.
  
      Calling ``bar = import_item("foo.bar")`` is the functional equivalent of
      executing the code ``from foo import bar``.
  
      Parameters
      ----------
      name : string
        The fully qualified name of the module/package being imported.
  
      Returns
      -------
      mod : module object
         The module that was imported.
      """
        
      package = '.'.join(name.split('.')[0:-1])
      obj = name.split('.')[-1]
      
      # Note: the original code for this was the following.  We've left it
      # visible for now in case the new implementation shows any problems down
      # the road, to make it easier on anyone looking for a problem.  This code
      # should be removed once we're comfortable we didn't break anything.
      
      ## execString = 'from %s import %s' % (package, obj)
      ## try:
      ##     exec execString
      ## except SyntaxError:
      ##     raise ImportError("Invalid class specification: %s" % name)
      ## exec 'temp = %s' % obj
      ## return temp
  
      if package:
          module = __import__(package,fromlist=[obj])
          try:
              pak = module.__dict__[obj]
          except KeyError:
              raise ImportError('No module named %s' % obj)
          return pak
      else:
          return __import__(obj)
  
new_contents: # encoding: utf-8
  """
  A simple utility to import something by its string name.
  
  Authors:
  
  * Brian Granger
  """
  
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  #  Copyright (C) 2008-2011  The IPython Development Team
  #
  #  Distributed under the terms of the BSD License.  The full license is in
  #  the file COPYING, distributed as part of this software.
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  # Functions and classes
  #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
  def import_item(name):
      """Import and return ``bar`` given the string ``foo.bar``.
  
      Calling ``bar = import_item("foo.bar")`` is the functional equivalent of
      executing the code ``from foo import bar``.
  
      Parameters
      ----------
      name : string
        The fully qualified name of the module/package being imported.
  
      Returns
      -------
      mod : module object
         The module that was imported.
      """
      
      parts = name.rsplit('.', 1)
      if len(parts) == 2:
          # called with 'foo.bar....'
          package, obj = parts
          module = __import__(package, fromlist=[obj])
          try:
              pak = module.__dict__[obj]
          except KeyError:
              raise ImportError('No module named %s' % obj)
          return pak
      else:
          # called with un-dotted string
          return __import__(parts[0])
  
subject: Restructure code to avoid unnecessary list slicing by using rsplit.