Python Packages?

Question

Ok, I think whatever I'm doing wrong, it's probably blindingly obvious, but I can't figure it out. I've read and re-read the tutorial section on packages and the only thing I can figure is that this won't work because I'm executing it directly. Here's the directory setup:

eulerproject/
  __init__.py
  euler1.py
  euler2.py
  ...
  eulern.py
  tests/
    __init__.py
    testeulern.py

Here are the contents of testeuler12.py (the first test module I've written):

import unittest
from .. import euler12

class Euler12UnitTests(unittest.TestCase):


    def testtriangle(self):
        """
        Ensure that the triangle number generator returns the first 10
        triangle numbers.

        """
        self.seq = [1,3,6,10,15,21,28,36,45,55]
        self.generator = euler12.trianglegenerator()
        self.results = []
        while len(self.results) != 10:
            self.results.append(self.generator.next())
        self.assertEqual(self.seq, self.results)

    def testdivisors(self):
        """
        Ensure that the divisors function can properly factor the number 28.

        """
        self.number = 28
        self.answer = [1,2,4,7,14,28]
        self.assertEqual(self.answer, euler12.divisors(self.number))


if __name__ == '__main__':

    unittest.main()

Now, when I execute this from IDLE and from the command line while in the directory, I get the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Documents and Settings\jbennet\My Documents\Python\eulerproject\tests\testeuler12.py", line 2, in <module>
    from .. import euler12
ValueError: Attempted relative import in non-package

I think the problem is that since I'm running it directly, I can't do relative imports (because __name__ changes, and my vague understanding of the packages description is that __name__ is part of how it tells what package it's in), but in that case what do you guys suggest for how to import the 'production' code stored 1 level up from the test code?

Answer 1

I had the same problem. I now use nose to run my tests, and relative imports are correctly handled.

Yeah, this whole relative import thing is confusing.