How to enable autocomplete (IntelliSense) for python package modules?

Question

This question is not about Pygame, I'm usin Pygame as an example.

While experimenting with Pygame I've noticed that autocomplete is not working for some modules. For example, if I start typing pygame.mixer autocomplete shows MissingModule. While searching for a solution I've found a lot of similar questions for various text editors and modules that have parts written in C. I am using Visual Studio Code, python path is set correctly and my code runs fine. One strange workaround is modifying Pygame's __init__.py What's the right way to enable autocomplete?

Answer 1

I've found a solution, but I would appreciate some explanation from someone more experienced with Python:

import package.module as module

With Pygame mixer it's:

import pygame.mixer as mixer 

But I still don't understand why autocomplete for import.package.module doesn't work, but import.package.module as module does.

Answer 2

Probably pygame.mixer doesn't work with import pygame because there is no attribute mixer inside pygame package. If attribute is not there autcomplete won't list it.

When you import package, Python doesn't recursively import subpackages and modules unless it's explicitly assigned inside the "__init__.py" file inside a package.

This is why import pygame.mixer as mixer works because you import pygame package and mixer module(?) which is available through local name mixer. However with such import you don't have pygame available in local scope.

Similar situation is when you just import pygame.mixer. pygame is available but mixer has to be referenced by pygame.mixer.

In both cases pygame package and pygame.mixer module(?) are executed.

You could also use from pygame import mixer instead import pygame.mixer as mixer or from pygame import mixer as module if you want to rename.