Importing modules from parent folder

Question

I am running Python 2 5   This is my folder tree   ptdraft    nib py   simulations      life        life py    I also have   init   py in each folder  omitted here for readability   How do I import the nib module from inside the life module  I am hoping it is possible to do without tinkering with sys path   Note  The main module being run is in the ptdraft folder

User · Answer

Though the original author is probably no longer looking for a solution, but for completeness, there one simple solution. It's to run life.py as a module like this:

cd ptdraft
python -m simulations.life.life

This way you can import anything from nib.py as ptdraft directory is in the path.

User · Answer

It seems that the problem is not related to the module being in a parent directory or anything like that   You need to add the directory that contains ptdraft to PYTHONPATH  You said that import nib worked with you  that probably means that you added ptdraft itself  not its parent  to PYTHONPATH

User · Answer

Although it is against all rules  I still want to mention this possibility   You can first copy the file from the parent directory to the child directory  Next import it and subsequently remove the copied file   for example in life py   import os import shutil  shutil copy     nib py        import nib os remove  nib py      now you can use it just fine  nib foo     Of course there might arise several problems when nibs tries to import read other files with relative imports paths

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I made this library to do this  https   github com fx-kirin add parent path   Just add parent path add parent path 1     Append to syspath and delete when the exist of with statement  with add parent path 1        Import modules in the parent path    pass

User · Answer

same sort of style as the past answer - but in fewer lines  P  import os sys parentdir   os path dirname   file    sys path insert 0 parentdir    file returns the location you are working in

User · Answer

In a Linux system  you can create a soft link from the  life  folder to the nib py file  Then  you can simply import it like   import nib

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I posted a similar answer also to the question regarding imports from sibling packages  You can see it here   Solution without sys path hacks  Summary   Wrap the code into one folder  e g  packaged stuff  Use create setup py script where you use setuptools setup    Pip install the package in editable state with pip install -e  lt myproject folder gt    Import using from packaged stuff modulename import function name    Setup  I assume the same folder structure as in the question     -- ptdraft      --   init   py      -- nib py      -- simulations          --   init   py          -- life              --   init   py              -- life py   I call the   the root folder  and in my case it is located in C  tmp test imports   Steps  1  Add a setup py to the root folder  The contents of the setup py can be simply  from setuptools import setup  find packages  setup name  myproject   version  1 0   packages find packages      Basically  any  setup py would work  This is just a minimal working example   2  Use a virtual environment  If you are familiar with virtual environments  activate one  and skip to the next step  Usage of virtual environments are not absolutely required  but they will really help you out in the long run  when you have more than 1 project ongoing     The most basic steps are  run in the root folder    Create virtual env   python -m venv venv  Activate virtual env      venv bin activate  Linux  or   venv Scripts activate  Win     To learn more about this  just Google out  python virtualenv tutorial  or similar  You probably never need any other commands than creating  activating and deactivating    Once you have made and activated a virtual environment  your console should give the name of the virtual environment in parenthesis  PS C  tmp test imports gt  python -m venv venv PS C  tmp test imports gt    venv Scripts activate  venv  PS C  tmp test imports gt    3  pip install your project in editable state  Install your top level package myproject using pip  The trick is to use the -e flag when doing the install  This way it is installed in an editable state  and all the edits made to the  py files will be automatically included in the installed package    In the root directory  run  pip install -e    note the dot  it stands for  current directory    You can also see that it is installed by using pip freeze    venv  PS C  tmp test imports gt  pip install -e   Obtaining file    C  tmp test imports Installing collected packages  myproject   Running setup py develop for myproject Successfully installed myproject  venv  PS C  tmp test imports gt  pip freeze myproject  1 0   4  Import by prepending mainfolder to every import  In this example  the mainfolder would be ptdraft  This has the advantage that you will not run into name collisions with other module names  from python standard library or 3rd party modules      Example Usage  nib py  def function from nib        print  I am the return value from function from nib      life py  from ptdraft nib import function from nib  if   name         main         function from nib     Running life py   venv  PS C  tmp test imports gt  python   ptdraft simulations life life py I am the return value from function from nib

User · Answer

Above mentioned solutions are also fine  Another solution to this problem is  If you want to import anything from top level directory  Then   from    module name import     Also  if you want to import any module from the parent directory  Then   from   module name import     Also  if you want to import any module from the parent directory  Then   from    module name another module import     This way you can import any particular method if you want to

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For me the shortest and my favorite oneliner for accessing to the parent directory is   sys path append os path dirname os getcwd       or   sys path insert 1  os path dirname os getcwd       os getcwd   returns the name of the current working directory  os path dirname directory name  returns the directory name for the passed one   Actually  in my opinion Python project architecture should be done the way where no one module from child directory will use any module from the parent directory  If something like this happens it is worth to rethink about the project tree   Another way is to add parent directory to PYTHONPATH system environment variable

User · Answer

Work with libraries  Make a library called nib  install it using setup py  let it reside in site-packages and your problems are solved  You don t have to stuff everything you make in a single package  Break it up to pieces

User · Answer

You could use relative imports  python    2 5    from     import nib    What   s New in Python 2 5  PEP 328  Absolute and Relative Imports  EDIT  added another dot     to go up two packages

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I had a problem where I had to import a Flask application  that had an import that also needed to import files in separate folders  This is partially using Remi s answer  but suppose we had a repository that looks like this     -- service      -- misc          -- categories csv      -- test          -- app test py     app py     pipeline py  Then before importing the app object from the app py file  we change the directory one level up  so when we import the app  which imports the pipeline py   we can also read in miscellaneous files like a csv file  import os sys inspect currentdir   os path dirname os path abspath inspect getfile inspect currentframe      parentdir   os path dirname currentdir  sys path insert 0 parentdir   os chdir        from app import app  After having imported the Flask app  you can use os chdir    test   so that your working directory is not changed

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Don t know much about python 2  In python 3  the parent folder can be added as follows   import sys  sys path append            and then one is able to import modules from it

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I found the following way works for importing a package from the script s parent directory  In the example  I would like to import functions in env py from app db package      -- my application      -- alembic          -- env py      -- app          --   init   py          -- db   import os import sys currentdir   os path dirname os path realpath   file     parentdir   os path dirname currentdir  sys path append parentdir

User · Answer

import sys sys path append

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Relative imports  as in from    import mymodule  only work in a package  To import  mymodule  that is in the parent directory of your current module   import os sys inspect currentdir   os path dirname os path abspath inspect getfile inspect currentframe      parentdir   os path dirname currentdir  sys path insert 0 parentdir    import mymodule   edit  the   file   attribute is not always given  Instead of using os path abspath   file    I now suggested using the inspect module to retrieve the filename  and path  of the current file

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Our folder structure   myproject   project using ptdraft      main py   ptdraft        init   py     nib py     simulations          init   py       life            init   py         life py  The way I understand this is to have a package-centric view  The package root is ptdraft  since it s the top most level that contains   init   py All the files within the package can use absolute paths  that are relative to package root  for imports  for example in life py  we have simply  import ptdraft nib  However  to run life py for package dev testing purposes  instead of python life py  we need to use  cd  myproject python -m ptdraft simulations life life  Note that we didn t need to fiddle with any path at all at this point   Further confusion is when we complete the ptdraft package  and we want to use it in a driver script  which is necessarily outside of the ptdraft package folder  aka project using ptdraft main py  we would need to fiddle with paths  import sys sys path append  quot  myproject quot      folder that contains ptdraft import ptdraft import ptdraft simulations  and use python main py to run the script without problem  Helpful links   https   chrisyeh96 github io 2017 08 08 definitive-guide-python-imports html running-package-initialization-code https   stackoverflow com a 50392363 2202107 https   stackoverflow com a 27876800 2202107

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In a Jupyter Notebook  As long as you re working in a Jupyter Notebook  this short solution might be useful    cd    import nib   It works even without an   init   py file   I tested it with Anaconda3 on Linux and Windows 7

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If adding your module folder to the PYTHONPATH didn t work  You can modify the sys path list in your program where the Python interpreter searches for the modules to import  the python documentation says      When a module named spam is imported  the interpreter first searches for a built-in module with that name  If not found  it then searches for a file named spam py in a list of directories given by the variable sys path  sys path is initialized from these locations                 the directory containing the input script  or the current directory       PYTHONPATH  a list of directory names  with the same syntax as the shell variable PATH       the installation-dependent default                After initialization  Python programs can modify sys path  The directory containing the script being run is placed at the beginning of the search path  ahead of the standard library path  This means that scripts in that directory will be loaded instead of modules of the same name in the library directory  This is an error unless the replacement is intended        Knowing this  you can do the following in your program   import sys   Add the ptdraft folder path to the sys path list sys path append   path to ptdraft       Now you can import your module from ptdraft import nib   Or just import ptdraft

User · Answer

The pathlib library  included with  gt   Python 3 4  makes it very concise and intuitive to append the path of the parent directory to the PYTHONPATH  import sys from pathlib import Path sys path append str Path      absolute   parent

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Here is more generic solution that includes the parent directory into sys path  works for me    import os path  sys sys path append os path join os path dirname os path realpath   file      os pardir

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You can use OS depending path in  module search path  which is listed in sys path   So you can easily add parent directory like following   import sys sys path insert 0         If you want to add parent-parent directory   sys path insert 0            This works both in python 2 and 3

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Here is an answer that s simple so you can see how it works  small and cross-platform  It only uses built-in modules  os  sys and inspect  so should work on any operating system  OS  because Python is designed for that   Shorter code for answer - fewer lines and variables    from inspect import getsourcefile import os path as path  sys current dir   path dirname path abspath getsourcefile lambda 0    sys path insert 0  current dir  current dir rfind path sep    import my module    Replace  my module  here with the module name  sys path pop 0    For less lines than this  replace the second line with import os path as path  sys  inspect  add inspect  at the start of getsourcefile  line 3  and remove the first line   - however this imports all of the module so could need more time  memory and resources   The code for my answer  longer version     from inspect import getsourcefile import os path import sys  current path   os path abspath getsourcefile lambda 0   current dir   os path dirname current path  parent dir   current dir  current dir rfind os path sep    sys path insert 0  parent dir   import my module    Replace  my module  here with the module name    It uses an example from a Stack Overflow answer How do I get the path of the current executed file in Python  to find the source  filename  of running code with a built-in tool    from inspect import getsourcefile   from os path import abspath         Next  wherever you want to find the source file from you just use   abspath getsourcefile lambda 0      My code adds a file path to sys path  the python path list because this allows Python to import modules from that folder   After importing a module in the code  it s a good idea to run sys path pop 0  on a new line when that added folder has a module with the same name as another module that is imported later in the program  You need to remove the list item added before the import  not other paths  If your program doesn t import other modules  it s safe to not delete the file path because after a program ends  or restarting the Python shell   any edits made to sys path disappear   Notes about a filename variable  My answer doesn t use the   file   variable to get the file path filename of running code because users here have often described it as unreliable  You shouldn t use it for importing modules from parent folder in programs used by other people     Some examples where it doesn t work  quote from this Stack Overflow question        it can t be found on some platforms     it sometimes isn t the full file path        py2exe doesn t have a   file   attribute  but there is a workaround   When you run from IDLE with execute   there is no   file   attribute   OS X 10 6 where I get NameError  global name    file    is not defined

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