Import local function from a module housed in another directory with relative imports in Jupyter Notebook using Python 3

Question

I have a directory structure similar to the following

meta_project
    project1
        __init__.py
        lib
            module.py
            __init__.py         


        

Answer 1

Researching this topic myself and having read the answers I recommend using the path.py library since it provides a context manager for changing the current working directory.

You then have something like

import path
if path.Path('../lib').isdir():
    with path.Path('..'):
        import lib

Although, you might just omit the isdir statement.

Here I'll add print statements to make it easy to follow what's happening

import path
import pandas

print(path.Path.getcwd())
print(path.Path('../lib').isdir())
if path.Path('../lib').isdir():
    with path.Path('..'):
        print(path.Path.getcwd())
        import lib
        print('Success!')
print(path.Path.getcwd())

which outputs in this example (where lib is at /home/jovyan/shared/notebooks/by-team/data-vis/demos/lib):

/home/jovyan/shared/notebooks/by-team/data-vis/demos/custom-chart
/home/jovyan/shared/notebooks/by-team/data-vis/demos
/home/jovyan/shared/notebooks/by-team/data-vis/demos/custom-chart

Since the solution uses a context manager, you are guaranteed to go back to your previous working directory, no matter what state your kernel was in before the cell and no matter what exceptions are thrown by importing your library code.