How to import a module given the full path?

Question

How can I load a Python module given its full path?

Note that the file can be anywhere in the filesystem, as it is a configuration option.

Answer 1

The advantage of adding a path to sys.path (over using imp) is that it simplifies things when importing more than one module from a single package. For example:

import sys # the mock-0.3.1 dir contains testcase.py, testutils.py & mock.py sys.path.append('/foo/bar/mock-0.3.1')  from testcase import TestCase from testutils import RunTests from mock import Mock, sentinel, patch 

Answer 2

For Python 3.5+ use:

import importlib.util spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location("module.name", "/path/to/file.py") foo = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec) spec.loader.exec_module(foo) foo.MyClass() 

For Python 3.3 and 3.4 use:

from importlib.machinery import SourceFileLoader  foo = SourceFileLoader("module.name", "/path/to/file.py").load_module() foo.MyClass() 

(Although this has been deprecated in Python 3.4.)

For Python 2 use:

import imp  foo = imp.load_source('module.name', '/path/to/file.py') foo.MyClass() 

There are equivalent convenience functions for compiled Python files and DLLs.

See also http://bugs.python.org/issue21436.