Import all classes (or functions) in all files in folder, as if they were all in the __init__ file

Question

I have a folder with multiple files containing a lot of different classes. These could all be in one big file but for the sake of making it a bit easier to read I've split it up in multiple files depending on what the classes belongs to.

I'd like to import all classes from all files in the folder into the __init__ file so that I can import anything from the folder without knowing in what file it belongs to.

Example:

/kitchen  + __init__.py  + fridge.py  + stove.py  + cupboard.py 

Now I have to do

from kitchen.fridge import milk 

When I'd like to do

from kitchen import milk 

The equivalent of this I can get through in __init__.py do:

from kitchen.fridge import * from kitchen.stove import * from kitchen.cupboard import * 

And then I can do

from kitchen import milk 

But I'd like it to take all files in the folder without having to specify it explicitly (so that files can be dumped there and then used).

Is there any way of doing this?

Answer 1

import os, sys  dir_path = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) files_in_dir = [f[:-3] for f in os.listdir(dir_path)                 if f.endswith('.py') and f != '__init__.py'] for f in files_in_dir:     mod = __import__('.'.join([__name__, f]), fromlist=[f])     to_import = [getattr(mod, x) for x in dir(mod)]                # if isinstance(getattr(mod, x), type)]  # if you need classes only      for i in to_import:         try:             setattr(sys.modules[__name__], i.__name__, i)         except AttributeError:             pass 

Answer 2

This is a very bad idea. If you want to add a mechanism for files to be "dumped there and used", you probably want to come up with a plugin scheme, and explicitly search the plugin directory(ies).

The way you normally do this is to iterate one or more plugin directories with os.listdir or os.walk, then, for each Python file, use importlib (or lower-level equivalents from imp, in Python 2.x) to import it by path.

However, if you really insist on faking things this way inside a package, you can do basically the same tricks within the __init__.py file, using os.path.dirname(__file__) as the plugin directory.

And, if you really insist on doing the equivalent of from foo import * instead of import foo by path, that's just as easy—or, alternatively, you can use execfile.

If you don't know how to do these simple things, or how to look them up in the docs… then you definitely shouldn't be attempting this. So, I won't provide sample code in this case.