False positive `import-self` when attempting relative import of misspelled submodule name in a package.

[emcd]

Bug description

from . import <submodule-name> is a frequent pattern in Python and people can misspell a submodule name. As the misspelled name should not conflict with any attribute contained in the module performing the relative import, an error about a missing module attribute would be more appropriate and less likely to produce confusion than import-self. It seems reasonable that import-self should be reserved for cases where there is an attempt to import an existent attribute from the importing module itself.

$ cat pylint_bug/__init__.py
''' Simple reproducer for Pylint 'import-self' false positive. '''
from . import misspelled_module_name

Result of running Pylint on this:

$ pylint --reports=no --score=no pylint_bug
************* Module pylint_bug
pylint_bug/__init__.py   2, 0 [import-self] Module import itself

I see that there has been some recent conversation around another import-self issue: #5151 / #7289 . If a fix for this issue is also part of the fix for that one, then apologies for the noise.

Configuration

No response

Command used

pylint --reports=no --score=no pylint_bug

Pylint output

************* Module pylint_bug
pylint_bug/__init__.py   2, 0 [import-self] Module import itself

Expected behavior

Would expect an error about a missing module attribute. Would only expect to see import-self if the module attribute actually existed and the module had an import cycle with itself.

Pylint version

$ pylint --version
pylint 2.15.2
astroid 2.12.9
Python 3.7.13 (default, Aug  5 2022, 09:50:13)
[GCC 9.4.0]

OS / Environment

No response

Additional dependencies

No response

[DanielNoord]

Thanks @emcd. This is indeed a bug! I hope this gets fixed with #7289, but we should at least consider them at the same time!