Python: import the containing package

Question

Also, starting in Python 2.5, relative imports are possible. e.g.:

from . import foo

Quoting from http://docs.python.org/tutorial/modules.html#intra-package-references:

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Starting with Python 2.5, in addition to the implicit relative imports described above, you can write explicit relative imports with the from module import name form of import statement. These explicit relative imports use leading dots to indicate the current and parent packages involved in the relative import. From the surrounding module for example, you might use:

from . import echo
from .. import formats
from ..filters import equalizer

This doesn't exactly answer your question, but I'm going to suggest that you move the function outside of the __init__.py file, and into another module inside that package. You can then easily import that function into your other module. If you want, you can have an import statement in the __init__.py file that will import that function (when the package is imported) as well.

If the package is named testmod and your init file is therefore testmod/__init__.py and your module within the package is submod.py then from within submod.py file, you should just be able to say import testmod and use whatever you want that's defined in testmod.

I'm not totally sure what the situation is, but this may solve your "different name" problem:

import __init__ as top
top.some_function()

Or maybe?:

from __init__ import some_function
some_function()