Insider Scripts

Purpose

Run python scripts from inside a package without relative import error.

Often when working on a project, one might want scripts to be callable from anywhere within the tree of the project.

For instance with the following layout:

your_package/
|── scriptX.py
|── A_folder/
|   ├── A.py
|   ├── C.py
|   └── scriptA.py
|── B_folder/
|   └── B.py

The following import in C.py will fail if the scriptA.py imports C and is run from inside the package:

from .A import A # relative import with no known parent package.
from ..B_folder.B import B # relative import with no known parent package.

Absolute import of A would work:

import A.A

but it would the fail if scriptX.py imports C.

Using the trick of adding a path to sys.path will work most of the time, however if you have the following situation:

C.py

import sys
from importlib import Path
sys.path.append(Path(__file__).parent.parent)
from B import B

def make_B() -> B:
  return B()

scriptX.py

from A_folder.C import make_B
from B_folder.B import B
b = make_B()
print(isinstance(b, B)) # prints False

scriptX.py will print False because make_B produces an instance of B.B while the imported B is an instance of B_folder.B.B.

The best solution I found to solve those issue resulted in the creation of the insider_scripts package.

Installation

pip install insider_scripts

Usage

Import the function define script from the insider_scripts and call it with either the depth of the script in the package, or the path of the package root.

Example layout

your_package/
|── A_folder/
|   ├── A.py
|   └── script.py
|── B_folder/
|   └── B.py

Example script:\n"

from pathlib import Path
from insider_scripts import define_script
define_script(1) # or define_script(Path(__file__).parent.parent) or define_script(-1)

from .A import A
from ..B_folder.B import B