Unable to import module from another package

Question

I have a directory structure like this

conf
    __init__.py
    settings.py
    abc.conf
    def.conf
src
    main.py
    xyz.py

src I chose not to make a package but a regular folder. I am trying to import the settings.py file in the main.py and executing the whole thing with the command python3 main.py

My import statement in main.py : import conf.settings

The error I'm getting is No module named conf.settings and I can't get my head around it.

Is python failing to recognize conf as a package? Can packages contain files other than .py files (.conf files in my case)

Answer 1

When importing python search current directory and the sys.path . Since your main.py is in src folder it cannot see the conf package folder. Luckily you could update sys.path at runtime.

root
     conf
        __init__.py
        settings.py
     src
        main.py

So you could append sys.path from main.py before importing conf module. Try following:

# main.py
import os, sys
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), ".."))

from conf import settings
...

---

The other way is to update PYTHONPATH directly and add path to your script root directory.