pathimp

Import Python modules from any file system path.

Installation

pip3 install pathimp

Usage

import pathimp

pathimp.import_module(
    name='my_module',              # Name of the module directory or file.
    path='../path/to/parent/dir',  # Path or list of paths to search.
    notfound='error')              # Raise 'error' or 'ignore' when not found.

import my_module

Background

When using import, Python tries to find the module in sys.path. Additional search directories can be added to sys.path or specified via the PYTHONPATH environment variable. This solution works well in many cases. However, adding directories to sys.path makes all modules inside the added directories available to import. This pollution of the import path can lead to accidentally importing undesired packages. The pathimp package allows importing packages from a file system path without polluting the Python import path.

Details

After calling pathimp.import_module(), the module is available in sys.modules and can be imported normally by later code. The function also returns the module, allowing to use it directly without further import:

import pathimp
my_module = pathimp.import_module('my_module', '../path/to/parent/dir')

If the module is not found as a directory or file under the provided path, a ModuleNotFoundError is raied. The exception can be disable by passing the notfound='ignore' argument:

pathimp.import_module('my_module', '../path/to/parent/dir', notfound='ignore')

Whether the import succeeded can still be found out by looking at the return value, which is either the module instance or False if the module was not found.