def resolve_name(import_name, silent=False):
    """Imports an object based on a string.  This is useful if you want to
    use import paths as endpoints or something similar.  An import path can
    be specified either in dotted notation (``xml.sax.saxutils.escape``)
    or with a colon as object delimiter (``xml.sax.saxutils:escape``).

    If `silent` is True the return value will be `None` if the import fails.

    For better debugging we recommend the new :func:`import_module`
    function to be used instead.

    :param import_name: the dotted name for the object to import.
    :param silent: if set to `True` import errors are ignored and
                   `None` is returned instead.
    :return: imported object
    """
    # force the import name to automatically convert to strings
    if PY3:
        unicode = str
    else:
        global unicode
    if isinstance(import_name, unicode):
        import_name = str(import_name)
    try:
        if ':' in import_name:
            module, obj = import_name.split(':', 1)
        elif '.' in import_name:
            module, obj = import_name.rsplit('.', 1)
        else:
            return __import__(import_name)
            # __import__ is not able to handle unicode strings in the fromlist
        # if the module is a package
        if isinstance(obj, unicode):
            obj = obj.encode('utf-8')
        if isinstance(obj, bytes):
            obj = obj.decode('utf-8')
        try:
            return getattr(__import__(module, None, None, [obj]), obj)
        except (ImportError, __HOLE__):
            # support importing modules not yet set up by the parent module
            # (or package for that matter)
            modname = module + '.' + obj
            __import__(modname)
            return sys.modules[modname]
    except ImportError as e:
        if not silent:
            raise ImportStringError(import_name, e)
dataset/ETHPy150Open tarekziade/boom/boom/util.py/resolve_name