Import modules from subfolders

Question

I have following arrangement of files:

python
|---- main.py
|---- files
      |---- folder1
            |---- a.py, a1.py, ...
      |---- folder2
            |---- b.py, b1.py, ...

I wanted to import my modules a.py and b.py to main.py. For this I used the following commands in main.py:

a = 'C:/python/files/folder1'
sys.path.insert(0, a)
from files.folder1 import *

However, I am unable to import modules from folder1 (similarly for folder2).

I get an error:

No module named files.folder1

I cannot use import command as there are many Python files in folder1, folder2, ...

What am I missing here?

score 32 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 28 '22 at 00:43

32

Add a file __init__.py (can be blank) to folders files, folder1 and folder2. Then you got a package files with sub-packages folder1 and folder2. After this you can import from the main.py like this:

from files.folder1 import *

edited Jan 28 '22 at 00:43

mkrieger1

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answered Nov 28 '12 at 06:29

Yunzhi Ma

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Nice straightforward answer! – Sahil Sareen Dec 24 '14 at 06:25
suppose if my folder structure is like dataaccess.service/services.py, now how to import this path? – tiru Feb 05 '16 at 18:43

score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 28 '22 at 00:43

19

When I do this in Python 2.7 I use:

import sys
sys.path.append('C:/python/files/folder1')

import a
import a1

Here's a hack I built to import all modules in a directory into a dictionary:

import os
import sys

dir_of_interest = 'C:/python/files/folder1'
modules = {}

sys.path.append(dir_of_interest)
for module in os.listdir(dir_of_interest):
    if '.py' in module and '.pyc' not in module:
        current = module.replace('.py', '')
        modules[current] = __import__(current)

I just built it and it's extremely hacky but it might be more like something you want. So, to access the module you want, instead of saying module_name.thing you would say modules["module_name"].thing

edited Jan 28 '22 at 00:43

mkrieger1

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answered Nov 28 '12 at 06:20

mjgpy3

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I agree, however, isn't it cumbersome to write many import statements if you have large number of files? – user741592 Nov 28 '12 at 06:22
@user741592: Why are you splitting your code up between many files? You should group relevant stuff together into a module. – BrenBarn Nov 28 '12 at 06:23
Unfortunately, there is a requirement to split up the code. I would have been happy to group the chunk into a single file. – user741592 Nov 28 '12 at 06:24
See the above edit/hack... It might be something more like what you're looking for. – mjgpy3 Nov 28 '12 at 06:36

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 28 '22 at 00:44

3

I cannot use import command as there are many Python files in folder1, folder2, ...

What am I missing here?

I believe the part you are missing is the __init__.py file in each of the folders. That file should include an __all__ variable that lists all the submodules that will imported by: from somepackage.subpackage import *.

This is all elegantly explained in the Python Tutorial section on Packages.

edited Jan 28 '22 at 00:44

mkrieger1

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answered Nov 28 '12 at 06:25

Raymond Hettinger

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The reference link provided really explain it very well. – Dipankar May 20 '20 at 07:08

BrenBarn · Answer 4 · 2012-11-28T06:27:14.033

If you add folder1 to the path, that doesn't mean you can import folder1 as a module. It means you can import the files inside folder1. So you could do:

import a
import a1

If you want to have folder1 be a package of which a and a1 are modules, you need to put an __init__.py in folder1 and then do import folder1. If you further want to be able to do from folder1 import * and have that import a and a1, you need to put code in your __init__.py that imports a and a1.

If you have a lot of files in a folder that you want to be able to import in a structured way, you should make that folder into a package.

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 19 '21 at 06:53

Looking at the folder structure , what you could do is , Simply

from files.folder1 import a , a1
from files.folder2 import b , b1

and this should help

.

Extras : I recently thought of a problem , of importing pip packages without actually installing them , then what i did was ... i pip installed the package in a virtual environment and copied only folder of the package name

eg. if the package name is qwikidata , then i went to /Lib folder and copied only the qwikidata folder and pasted it in the root of my project , in your case , where the main.py file is and pip uninstalled the package , to avoid the errors

And now i was able to import the package without actually pip installing it since the package was in my root folder of the project

If the project is not so complicated , then it should be fine , but I wouldn't recommend this way of installing packages .

It helps when you want to run your project on some other machine and You dont have an Internet connection .

Import modules from subfolders

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