All your __import__ are belong to us

Everyone knows and loves Python’s import function. This function is used to import external modules into the current module/script we are writing. Here are a few simple examples illustrating how the function can be used: Internally, a call to the …

Everyone knows and loves Python’s import function. This function is used to import external modules into the current module/script we are writing. Here are a few simple examples illustrating how the function can be used:


# import a specific module
from vehicle.four_wheels import car
my_car = car.Car(transmission="automatic")
# import a specific class within a module
from vehicle.four_wheels.car import Car
my_car = Car(transmission="automatic")
# import everything from a module into the current namespace
from vehicle.four_wheels import *
my_car = Car(transmission="automatic")
my_bus = Bus(color="Yellow")

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gistfile1.py

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Internally, a call to the import function makes a call to the built-in __import__ function. However, there are 2 cases where using import would not work and the only way out is to call __import__ ourselves.

The most common case where we would have to call __import__ directly would be when we want to import specific modules at run-time based on user input. Here is how we might do that:


# global scope these variables so that
# we can use them throughout our code
Car = None
Bus = None
#
# exciting stuff happening here
#
# now, based on the variable vehicle
# we want to import a specific module
if vehicle == "car":
# equivalent to: from vehicle.four_wheels.car import Car
_Car = __import__("vehicle.four_wheels.car", globals(), locals(), ["Car"])
Car = _Car.Car
if vehicle == "bus":
# equivalent to: from vehicle.four_wheels.bus import Bus
_Bus = __import__("vehicle.four_wheels.bus", globals(), locals(), ["Bus"])
Bus = _Bus.Bus

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gistfile1.py

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Yes, I know that we didn’t really have to import at run-time in the previous example. It was just meant to be a simple example 🙂

Another case where we might have to call __import__ is when, for some reason, the parent modules/folders for a module we want to import or a module itself has a name with characters that are not allowed by Python. For example, something like the snippet below would not work:


# this does not work!
from vehicles.fourwheels.car import Car

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gistfile1.py

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Notice how the hyphen is not allowed in the module name. Here is how we might work around that:


# this works!
_Car = __import__("vehicles.four-wheels-car", globals(), locals(), ["Car"])
Car = _Car.Car

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gistfile1.py

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