[jupyter-notebook] Importing .py files in Google Colab

Is there any way to upload my code in .py files and import them in colab code cells?

The other way I found is to create a local Jupyter notebook then upload it to Colab, is it the only way?

A easy way is

1. type in from google.colab import files uploaded = files.upload()
2. copy the code
3. paste in colab cell

Below are the steps that worked for me

1. Mount your google drive in google colab

   from google.colab import drive drive.mount('/content/drive')

2. Insert the directory

   import sys sys.path.insert(0,’/content/drive/My Drive/ColabNotebooks’)

3. check the current directory path

   %cd drive/MyDrive/ColabNotebooks %pwd

4. Import your module or file

   import my_module

5. If you get the following error 'Name Null is not defined' then do the following

   5.1 Download my_module.ipynb from colab as my_module.py file (file->Download .py)

   5.2 Upload the *.py file to drive/MyDrive/ColabNotebooks in Google drive

   5.3 import my_module will work now

Reference: https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/importing-your-own-python-module-or-python-file-into-colab-3e365f0a35ec

https://github.com/googlecolab/colabtools/issues/1358

Based on the answer by Korakot Chaovavanich, I created the function below to download all files needed within a Colab instance.

from google.colab import files
def getLocalFiles():
    _files = files.upload()
    if len(_files) >0:
       for k,v in _files.items():
         open(k,'wb').write(v)
getLocalFiles()

You can then use the usual 'import' statement to import your local files in Colab. I hope this helps

In case anyone else is interested to know how to import files/packages from gdrive inside a google colab. The following procedure worked for me:

1) Mount your google drive in google colab:

from google.colab import drive
drive.mount('/content/gdrive/')

2) Append the directory to your python path using sys:

import sys
sys.path.append('/content/gdrive/mypythondirectory')

Now you should be able to import stuff from that directory!

We can do so.

import sys
import os

py_file_location = "/content/drive/My Drive"
sys.path.append(os.path.abspath(py_file_location))

Now you can import it as module in notebook for that location.

import whatever

I face the same problem. After reading numerous posts, I would like to introduce the following solution I finally chose over many other methods (e.g. use urllib, httpimport, clone from GitHub, package the modules for installation, etc). The solution utilizes Google Drive API (official doc) for proper authorization.

Advantages:

1. Easy and safe (no need for code to handle file operation exceptions and/or additional authorization)
2. Module files safeguarded by Google account credentials (no one else can view/take/edit them)
3. You control what to upload/access (you can change/revoke access anytime on a file-by-file basis)
4. Everything in one place (no need to rely upon or manage another file hosting service)
5. Freedom to rename/relocate module files (not path-based and won't break your/other's notebook code)

Steps:

1. Save your .py module file to Google Drive - you should have that since you're already using Colab
2. Right click on it, "Get shareable link", copy the part after "id=" - the file id assigned by Google Drive
3. Add and run the following code snippets to your Colab notebook:

!pip install pydrive                             # Package to use Google Drive API - not installed in Colab VM by default
from pydrive.auth import GoogleAuth
from pydrive.drive import GoogleDrive

from google.colab import auth                    # Other necessary packages
from oauth2client.client import GoogleCredentials

auth.authenticate_user()                         # Follow prompt in the authorization process
gauth = GoogleAuth()
gauth.credentials = GoogleCredentials.get_application_default()

drive = GoogleDrive(gauth)
your_module = drive.CreateFile({"id": "your_module_file_id"})   # "your_module_file_id" is the part after "id=" in the shareable link
your_module.GetContentFile("your_module_file_name.py")          # Save the .py module file to Colab VM
import your_module_file_name                                    # Ready to import. Don't include".py" part, of course :)

Side note

Last but not least, I should credit the original contributor of this approach. That post might have some typo in the code as it triggered an error when I tried it. After more reading and troubleshooting my code snippets above worked (as of today on Colab VM OS: Linux 4.14.79).

Try this way:

I have a package named plant_seedlings. The package is stored in google drive. What I should do is to copy this package in /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/.

!cp /content/drive/ai/plant_seedlings.tar.gz /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/

!cd /usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages/ && tar -xzf plant_seedlings.tar.gz

!cd /content

!python -m plant_seedlings

It's Jun 2019. Make sure in the Python package's __init__.py all related files are imported in order. Push the code to Git or use this code.

for e.g,

from .Boxes import *
from .Circles import *
from .Rectangles import *
...

Don't use Package name in __init__.py file for importing the files.

in Google colab,

! rm -rf SorghumHeadDetection
! git clone https://github.com/user/amazing-repo-name/

1. You can upload local files to google colab by using upload() function in google.colab.files
2. If you have files on github, then clone the repo using !git clone https://github.com/username/repo_name.git. Then just like in jupyter notebook load it using the magic function %load %load filename.py.

You can upload those .py files to Google drive and allow Colab to use to them:

!mkdir -p drive
!google-drive-ocamlfuse drive

All your files and folders in root folder will be in drive.