How to import a module given its name as string?

Question

I\'m writing a Python application that takes as a command as an argument, for example:

$ python myapp.py command1

I want the application to

Answer 1

Nowadays you should use importlib.

Import a source file

The docs actually provide a recipe for that, and it goes like:

import sys
import importlib.util

file_path = 'pluginX.py'
module_name = 'pluginX'

spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location(module_name, file_path)
module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
spec.loader.exec_module(module)

# check if it's all there..
def bla(mod):
    print(dir(mod))
bla(module)

This way you can access the members (e.g, a function "hello") from your module pluginX.py -- in this snippet being called module -- under its namespace; E.g, module.hello().

If you want to import the members (e.g, "hello") you can include module/pluginX in the in-memory list of modules:

sys.modules[module_name] = module

from pluginX import hello
hello()

Import a package

Importing a package (e.g., pluginX/__init__.py) under your current dir is actually straightforward:

import importlib

pkg = importlib.import_module('pluginX')

# check if it's all there..
def bla(mod):
    print(dir(mod))
bla(pkg)