Is it possible in python to get a list of modules from a folder/package and import them?
I would like to be able to do this from a function inside a class, so that the entire class has access to them (possibly done from the __init__ method).
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
See the modules document.
The only solution is for the package author to provide an explicit index of the package. The import statement uses the following convention: if a package’s
__init__.pycode defines a list named__all__, it is taken to be the list of module names that should be imported when from package import * is encountered. It is up to the package author to keep this list up-to-date when a new version of the package is released. Package authors may also decide not to support it, if they don’t see a use for importing * from their package. For example, the file sounds/effects/__init__.pycould contain the following code:__all__ = ["echo", "surround", "reverse"]This would mean that from sound.effects import * would import the three named submodules of the sound package.
Yes, you could find a way to do this by doing a directory listing for the files in the directory and import them manually. But there isn't built-in syntax for what you're asking.
You can know the list of the modules with the dir function
import module dir (module) Later in a program, you can import a single function :
from module import function 
dir(foo) (with foo being a package) I get ['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__name__', '__package__', '__path__'] which doesn't contain a list of the modules in the package.
>>> type(dir(sys)) <type 'list'>
__init__.py file of the package's directory). The modules for the package are only included in this list if they are explicitly stated in the __all__ variable.The distribute module provides a mechanism that does much of this. First, you might start by listing the python files in a package using pkg_resources.resource_listdir:
>>> module_names = set(os.path.splitext(r)[0] ... for r ... in pkg_resources.resource_listdir("sqlalchemy", "/") ... if os.path.splitext(r)[1] in ('.py', '.pyc', '.pyo', '') ... ) - set(('__init__',)) >>> module_names set(['engine', 'util', 'exc', 'pool', 'processors', 'interfaces', 'databases', 'ext', 'topological', 'queue', 'test', 'connectors', 'orm', 'log', 'dialects', 'sql', 'types', 'schema']) You could then import each module in a loop:
modules = {} for module in module_names: modules[module] = __import__('.'.join('sqlalchemy', module)) 
from package import *anddir(package)insufficient? Note thatdiris a Python command, as well as a command line one.['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__name__', '__package__', '__path__']without any mention of the modules inpackage.dirshows the modules if the modules themselves are explicitly imported, though, but that defeats the purpose of the question.__init__.pyfile in the folder? Even empty, this is what tells python to treat the folder as a module.__init__.py. What I didn't have is what @MarkHildreth helpfully referenced: the line__all__ = ['bar','baz']in__init__.py.