Basic questions about packages/modules.

[Negroup]

Hi, first of all sorry for boring you with a such simple request. I'm
using Python since few days, and I like it even if I'm not yet in
confidence. I'd like to organize my programs in hierarchical
structures, thus I thought that packages could be the solution,
however I have some difficulties understanding their utilization (even
after reading chapter 6 of the tutorial, about modules).

Now an example (silly) to clarify my doubts:

This is the structure:
main.py
importers/
__init__.py (empty)
importer1.py
config/
__init__.py (empty)
parameters.py

main.py
=======
from importers import importer1
print importer1.display()

importers/importer1.py
======================
from config import parameters
def display():
return '-' * parameters.counter

config/parameters.py
====================
counter = 5


All works fine when I run "python main.py", while I get an error
trying to run "python importers/importer1.py":

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "importers/importer1.py", line 1, in ?
from config import parameters
ImportError: No module named config

Can you explain why does that happen? It prevents me to test
importer1.py alone.

TIA,
negroup

 

[John Abel]

Hi, first of all sorry for boring you with a such simple request. I'm
using Python since few days, and I like it even if I'm not yet in
confidence. I'd like to organize my programs in hierarchical
structures, thus I thought that packages could be the solution,
however I have some difficulties understanding their utilization (even
after reading chapter 6 of the tutorial, about modules).

Now an example (silly) to clarify my doubts:

This is the structure:
main.py
importers/
__init__.py (empty)
importer1.py
config/
__init__.py (empty)
parameters.py

main.py
=======
from importers import importer1
print importer1.display()

importers/importer1.py
======================
from config import parameters
def display():
return '-' * parameters.counter

config/parameters.py
====================
counter = 5


All works fine when I run "python main.py", while I get an error
trying to run "python importers/importer1.py":

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "importers/importer1.py", line 1, in ?
from config import parameters
ImportError: No module named config

Can you explain why does that happen? It prevents me to test
importer1.py alone.

TIA,
negroup

For your code to work, config would have to be a subdirectory under
importers. Unless, config had been installed in the site-packages.

J

 

[Kay Schluehr]

Hi, first of all sorry for boring you with a such simple request. I'm
using Python since few days, and I like it even if I'm not yet in
confidence. I'd like to organize my programs in hierarchical
structures, thus I thought that packages could be the solution,
however I have some difficulties understanding their utilization (even
after reading chapter 6 of the tutorial, about modules).

Now an example (silly) to clarify my doubts:

This is the structure:
main.py
importers/
__init__.py (empty)
importer1.py
config/
__init__.py (empty)
parameters.py

main.py
=======
from importers import importer1
print importer1.display()

importers/importer1.py
======================
from config import parameters
def display():
return '-' * parameters.counter

config/parameters.py
====================
counter = 5


All works fine when I run "python main.py", while I get an error
trying to run "python importers/importer1.py":

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "importers/importer1.py", line 1, in ?
from config import parameters
ImportError: No module named config

Can you explain why does that happen? It prevents me to test
importer1.py alone.

TIA,
negroup

mainpackage/
main.py
importers/
__init__.py (empty)
importer1.py
config/
__init__.py (empty)
parameters.py

If this is the package structure and you run 'python main.py' from
mainpackage the config package is already in the search path. Therefore
importing config in subsequent modules succeeds.

If you run importer1.py on the level of importers config may not be in
the PYTHONPATH and the import fails.

Solution: reference config in the import statement so that the package
can be found.

from mainpackage.config import parameters

should be suffient if mainpackage is in the PYTHONPATH. But note that
you have to be consistent with your import statements because the
module will be cached in sys. modules using it's import path as key.
Doing both

from mainpackage.config import parameters

and

from config import parameters

in different modules leads to reimports and different modules. This may
cause trouble if you compare objects using class information because
the id's of the classes are different.

Kay