Django importing another file from another package

Question

I have the following folder structure

app/
app/helpers/
app/helpers/methodhelper.py
app/methods/
app/methods/method.py

and I'm trying to import a function from methodhelper.py inside method.py
so I tried the following:

import app.helpers.methodhelper
OR
from app.helpers.methodhelper import function1
OR
import helpers.methodhelper

and I get:

"No module named app.helpers.methodhelper" 

Important to note: helpers/__init__.py already exists

How should this be done ?

Answer 1

Your Django project's default path is in the root directory of the project (where the manage.py file is). You can either add the sub directories below that to your PYTHONPATH (easily done by appending to sys.path) or you can import that function using the full module path:

from projectname.app.helpers.methodhelper import function1

When I start a Django project, I always add

PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.abspath(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), '..'))

to my settings.py. This path looks similar to /home/kyle/django_project_name/. Inside that directly is manage.py.

From there, also in my settings.py, I include:

sys.path.append(os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT, 'django_project_name'))

This makes my apps importable without the need to include my project name in the module path.