dummy entry to sys.modules, marking the absence of a submodule by the
same name.
Thus, if module foo.bar executes the statement "import time",
sys.modules['foo.time'] will be set to None, once the absence of a
module foo.time is confirmed (by looking for it in foo's path).
The next time when foo.bar (or any other submodule of foo) executes
"import time", no I/O is necessary to determine that there is no
module foo.time.
(Justification: It may seem strange to pollute sys.modules. However,
since we're doing the lookup anyway it's definitely the fastest
solution. This is the same convention that 'ni' uses and I haven't
heard any complaints.)
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