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I am testing my own package, but I am struggling to import it. My package file structure is as follows:

File Structure

(You can also alternatively view my Github repository here)

In PyAdventures is my init.py with the content of 

name="pyadventures"

So my question is, when I import it in another python file, how come it doesn't work?

I run:

import pyadventures

But I get the following error:

No module named pyadventures

It'd be great if you could answer my question!

It's important to note that the package is in my Python package directory, not the test one I showed

New discovery! In my PyAdventures folder (the one Python actually uses) the folder only has a few files, not the ones in the screenshot above.

New Discovery

You can install this with pip install pyadventures

whoff
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    You misunderstood the purpose of `__init__.py`, and you should read how to use [modules](https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/modules.html). I would suggest to just put all the functions and classes that you defined in a file and call it mylibrary.py, and use it with `from mylibrary import MyClass` or `from mylibrary import my_function` until you become more familiar and proficient with python. – hcheung May 26 '18 at 01:37
  • @hcheung I did in fact follow the Python docs for packaging – whoff May 26 '18 at 01:39
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    Well, that is not the way how it works. – hcheung May 26 '18 at 01:40
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    The only other thing I see is that your file is in camel caps PyAdventures vs your import, which is pyadventures. – cjonesrun May 26 '18 at 01:41
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    Read [this](http://mikegrouchy.com/blog/2012/05/be-pythonic-__init__py.html) and [What is __ init __.py for?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/448271/what-is-init-py-for). – hcheung May 26 '18 at 01:45

2 Answers2

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Ah, like others remark in comments and answer: The camelcase might be the problem. (Why not name it just all in lower case: pyadventures? - Else users will be as confused as its developer now :D .)

Before, I thought, it might be a problem that you want to use your module without having installed it (locally). And my following answer is for this case (using a not installed package from a local folder):

In the docs you can read:

The variable sys.path is a list of strings that determines the interpreter’s search path for modules. It is initialized to a default path taken from the environment variable PYTHONPATH, or from a built-in default if PYTHONPATH is not set. You can modify it using standard list operations:

import sys sys.path.append('/ufs/guido/lib/python')

thus, before import do:

import sys
sys.path.append('/absolute/or/relative/path/to/your/module/pyadventures')
# Now, your module is "visible" for the module loader
import pyadventures

Alternatively, you could just place your pyadventures module folder locally in your working directory where you start python and then just do

import pyadventures

However, it is much easier to manage to keep only one version in one place and refer to this from other places/scripts. (Else you have multiple copies, and have difficulties to track changes on the multiple copies).

As far as I know, your __init__.py doesn't need to contain anything. It works if it is empty. It is there just to mark your directory as a module.

Gwang-Jin Kim
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Simple. Even though the package listed on pip is namd pyadventures, in your code the directory is called PyAdventures. So that's what python knows it as. I ran import PyAdventures and it worked fine.

Calder White
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