Fixed #21674 -- Deprecated the import_by_path() function in favor of import_string().

Thanks Aymeric Augustin for the suggestion and review.

1 files changed, 16 insertions, 7 deletions

diff --git a/docs/ref/utils.txt b/docs/ref/utils.txt
index 6cac9fa058..5313a1de19 100644
--- a/docs/ref/utils.txt
+++ b/docs/ref/utils.txt
@@ -709,22 +709,31 @@ escaping HTML.
 
 Functions for working with Python modules.
 
-.. function:: import_by_path(dotted_path, error_prefix='')
+.. function:: import_string(dotted_path)
 
-    .. versionadded:: 1.6
+    .. versionadded:: 1.7
 
     Imports a dotted module path and returns the attribute/class designated by
-    the last name in the path. Raises
-    :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured` if something goes
-    wrong. For example::
+    the last name in the path. Raises ``ImportError`` if the import failed. For
+    example::
 
-        from django.utils.module_loading import import_by_path
-        ImproperlyConfigured = import_by_path('django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured')
+        from django.utils.module_loading import import_string
+        ImproperlyConfigured = import_string('django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured')
 
     is equivalent to::
 
         from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured
 
+.. function:: import_by_path(dotted_path, error_prefix='')
+
+    .. versionadded:: 1.6
+    .. deprecated:: 1.7
+       Use :meth:`~django.utils.module_loading.import_string` instead.
+
+    Imports a dotted module path and returns the attribute/class designated by
+    the last name in the path. Raises :exc:`~django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured`
+    if something goes wrong.
+
 ``django.utils.safestring``
 ===========================