How to include external Python code to use in other files

Question

If you have a collection of methods in a file  is there a way to include those files in another file  but call them without any prefix  i e  file prefix    So if I have    Math py  def Calculate   num     How do I call it like this    Tool py  using Math py  for i in range   5         Calculate   i

User · Answer

If you use   import Math   then that will allow you to use Math s functions  but you must do Math Calculate  so that is obviously what you don t want   If you want to import a module s functions without having to prefix them  you must explicitly name them  like   from Math import Calculate  Add  Subtract   Now  you can reference Calculate  Add  and Subtract just by their names  If you wanted to import ALL functions from Math  do   from Math import     However  you should be very careful when doing this with modules whose contents you are unsure of  If you import two modules who contain definitions for the same function name  one function will overwrite the other  with you none the wiser

User · Answer

I would like to emphasize an answer that was in the comments that is working well for me   As mikey has said  this will work if you want to have variables in the included file in scope in the caller of  include   just insert it as normal python   It works like an include statement in PHP   Works in Python 3 8 5   Happy coding  Alternative  1 import textwrap  from pathlib import Path exec textwrap dedent Path  myfile py   read text      Alternative  2 with open  myfile py   as f  exec f read

User · Answer

I ve found the python inspect module to be very useful  For example with teststuff py  import inspect  def dostuff        return   name    DOSTUFF SOURCE   inspect getsource dostuff   if   name         main          dostuff     And from the another script or the python console  import teststuff  exec DOSTUFF SOURCE   dostuff     And now dostuff should be in the local scope and dostuff   will return the console or scripts  name  whereas executing test dostuff   will return the python modules name

User · Answer

Just write the  include  command      import os  def include filename       if os path exists filename            execfile filename    include  myfile py      Deleet     bfieck remark is correct  for python 2 and 3 compatibility  you need either    Python 2 and 3  alternative 1  from past builtins import execfile  execfile  myfile py     Python 2 and 3  alternative 2  exec compile open  myfile py   read

User · Answer

You will need to import the other file as a module like this   import Math   If you don t want to prefix your Calculate function with the module name then do this   from Math import Calculate   If you want to import all members of a module then do this   from Math import     Edit  Here is a good chapter from Dive Into Python that goes a bit more in depth on this topic

[python] How to include external Python code to use in other files?

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