Python package import from parent directory

python import package importerror
user1543863 picture user1543863 · Jul 9, 2012 · Viewed 68.9k times · Source

I've the following source code structure

/testapp/
/testapp/__init__.py
/testapp/testmsg.py
/testapp/sub/
/testapp/sub/__init__.py
/testapp/sub/testprinter.py

where testmsg defines the following constant:

MSG = "Test message"

and sub/testprinter.py:

import testmsg

print("The message is: {0}".format(testmsg.MSG))

But I'm getting ImportError: No module named testmsg

Shouldn't it be working since the package structure? I don't really want to extend sys.path in each submodule and I don't even want to use relative import.

What am I doing wrong here?

Answer

nosklo picture nosklo · Jul 9, 2012

It all depends on which script you run. That script's path will be added to python's search path automatically.

Make it the following structure:

TestApp/
TestApp/README
TestApp/LICENSE
TestApp/setup.py
TestApp/run_test.py
TestApp/testapp/__init__.py
TestApp/testapp/testmsg.py
TestApp/testapp/sub/
TestApp/testapp/sub/__init__.py
TestApp/testapp/sub/testprinter.py

Then run TestApp/run_test.py first:

from testapp.sub.testprinter import functest ; functest()

Then TestApp/testapp/sub/testprinter.py could do:

from testapp.testmsg import MSG
print("The message is: {0}".format(testmsg.MSG))

More good hints here;

Related questions

relative path not working even with __init__.py

I know that there are plenty of similar questions on stack overflow. But the common answer doesn't seem to be working for me. I have a file structure like this proj/ lib/ __init__.py aa.py bb.py test/ __init__.…

Read More
beyond top level package error in relative import

It seems there are already quite some questions here about relative import in python 3, but after going through many of them I still didn't find the answer for my issue. so here is the question. I have a package shown …

Read More
Can't import my own modules in Python

I'm having a hard time understanding how module importing works in Python (I've never done it in any other language before either). Let's say I have: myapp/__init__.py myapp/myapp/myapp.py myapp/myapp/SomeObject.py myapp/tests/TestCase.…

Read More