Python 3.5 cannot import a module

I have read a ton of stackoverflow answers and a bunch of tutorials. In addition, I tried to read the Python documentation, but I cannot make this import work.

This is how the directory looks like:

myDirectory ├── __init__.py ├── LICENSE ├── project.py ├── README.md ├── stageManager.py └── tests ├── __init__.py └── test_project.py 

There is a class in project.py called Project, and I want to import it in a file under tests directory. I have tried the following:

Relative import:

from ..project import Project def print_sth(): print("something") 

This gives me the following error: (running from the tests directory as python test_project.py and from myDirectory as python tests/test_project.py)

Traceback (most recent call last): File "test_project.py", line 1, in <module> from ..project import Project SystemError: Parent module '' not loaded, cannot perform relative import 

Absolute import with package name:

If I have something like the following, I get ImportError (with the same run command as above).

from project import Project def print_sth(): print("something") ------------------------------------------------------ Traceback (most recent call last): File "test_project.py", line 1, in <module> from project import Project ImportError: No module named 'project' 

and this too:

from myDirectory.project import Project def print_sth(): print("something") ------------------------------------------------------ Traceback (most recent call last): File "test_project.py", line 1, in <module> from myDirectory.project import Project ImportError: No module named 'myDirectory' 

Finally, I tried adding the if __name__ == '__main__' statement within the test_project.py file, but it still failed. I would really appreciate if anyone could help. If there is a solution where I do not have to write a verbose command, I would prefer that.