How do i include other files containing function from different directory in Python?

Question

I want to include all files in my_lib as the directory will contains most used function per library. In this case i want to import my_pandas.py.

I already add the library directory my_lib which contains __init__.py and my_pandas.py.

However i cannot run the following command: from my_lib import my_pandas

How can i run from my_lib import my_pandas command?

Answer 1

Finding your own custom modules in Python is unfortunately a little fiddly.

You have correctly made my_lib into a module by adding __init__.py. There are two ways to get the module to import correctly, but they boil down to the same thing: the module needs to appear as a subdirectory inside a directory that is in your path.

Therefore your solutions are:

1. navigate to /home/inetvmart/python_apps and run your notebook there instead of inside /home/inetvmart/python_apps/my_lib (the current directory is always included in the path, and my_lib will be a subdirectory inside your current directory in this case)
2. add /home/inetvmart/python_apps rather than /home/inetvmart/python_apps/my_lib to your path (then the parent directory will be in the path. Therefore your custom module will be a subdirectory in a directory that is in your path)

In this particular case, then, you can probably just change your second cell to: sys.path.append("/home/inetvmart/python_apps")

---

I must warn you that this is a somewhat ... hacky ... approach (modifying the path inside a Python script to ensure your imports succeed).

In the medium term, you may like to do something like:

• create a folder called e.g. /home/<your username>/my_python_modules
• put this path into the $PYTHONPATH environment variable (which you could set in your .bashrc/.zshrc/other file)

Then you will be able to import the custom modules inside my_python_modules from anywhere on your machine.