How to maintain different version of a python module?

Question

I have this core python module we use in our facility called mfxLib. I need to be able to keep different version of this module without breaking all the other modules/plugin that are importing this module.

My solution was keep a duplicate of my module by renaming them mfxLib01 and mfxLib02 then to replace the original mfxLib module with an empty module containing only a __init__.py file that import the latest version.

# content of mfxLib.__init__.py
from mfxLib02 import *

This seems logical and seems to work but I was wondering if there was a common practice for doing this? guidelines to follow? etc

Thanks

Answer 1

You can import a module as another name. Commonly people use this to save typing in a long module name, for example:

import numpy as np
np.array([1,2,3,4])

Hence you could do:

import mfxLib01 as mfxLib

or

import mfxLib02 as mfxLib

then your code uses mfxLib everywhere.

That might help...

Answer 2

If you have different scripts requiring different versions, your current approach should be the the best, but I'd suggest using a version control system like Git or SVN. That would allow you to commit and revert to earlier versions easily, as well as share the module with other users.