python from import-5. The import system

5.The import system¶

Python code in one module gains access to the code in another module

by the process of importing it. The import statement is

the most common way of invoking the import machinery, but it is not the only

way. Functions such as importlib.import_module() and built-in

__import__() can also be used to invoke the import machinery.

The import statement combines two operations; it searches for the

named module, then it binds the results of that search to a name in the local

scope. The search operation of the import statement is defined as

a call to the __import__() function, with the appropriate arguments.

The return value of __import__() is used to perform the name

binding operation of the import statement. See the

import statement for the exact details of that name binding

operation.

A direct call to __import__() performs only the module search and, if

found, the module creation operation. While certain side-effects may occur,

such as the importing of parent packages, and the updating of various caches

(including sys.modules), only the import statement performs

a name binding operation.

When an import statement is executed, the standard builtin

__import__() function is called. Other mechanisms for invoking the

import system (such as importlib.import_module()) may choose to bypass

__import__() and use their own solutions to implement import semantics.

When a module is first imported, Python searches for the module and if found,

it creates a module object 1, initializing it. If the named module

cannot be found, a ModuleNotFoundError is raised. Python implements various

strategies to search for the named module when the import machinery is

invoked. These strategies can be modified and extended by using various hooks

described in the sections below.

Changed in version 3.3:The import system has been updated to fully implement the second phase

of PEP 302. There is no longer any implicit import machinery - the full

import system is exposed through sys.meta_path. In addition,

native namespace package support has been implemented (see PEP 420).

The importlib module provides a rich API for interacting with the

import system. For example importlib.import_module() provides a

recommended, simpler API than built-in __import__() for invoking the

import machinery. Refer to the importlib library documentation for

additional detail.

5.2.Packages¶

Python has only one type of module object, and all modules are of this type,

regardless of whether the module is implemented in Python, C, or something

else. To help organize modules and provide a naming hierarchy, Python has a

concept of packages.

You can think of packages as the directories on a file system and modules as

files within directories, but don’t take this analogy too literally since

packages and modules need not originate from the file system. For the

purposes of this documentation, we’ll use this convenient analogy of

directories and files. Like file system directories, packages are organized

hierarchically, and packages may themselves contain subpackages, as well as

regular modules.

It’s important to keep in mind that all packages are modules, but not all

modules are packages. Or put another way, packages are just a special kind of

module. Specifically, any module that contains a __path__ attribute is

considered a package.

All modules have a name. Subpackage names are separated from their parent

package name by a dot, akin to Python’s standard attribute access syntax. Thus

you might have a module called sys and a package called email,

which in turn has a subpackage called email.mime and a module within

that subpackage called email.mime.text.

5.2.1.Regular packages¶

Python defines two types of packages, regular packages and namespace packages. Regular

packages are traditional packages as they existed in Python 3.2 and earlier.

A regular package is typically implemented as a directory containing an

__init__.py file. When a regular package is imported, this

__init__.py file is implicitly executed, and the objects it defines are

bound to names in the package’s namespace. The __init__.py file can

contain the same Python code that any other module can contain, and Python

will add some additional attributes to the module when it is imported.

For example, the following file system layout defines a top level parent

package with three subpackages:

parent/

__init__.py

one/

__init__.py

two/

__init__.py

three/

__init__.py

Importing parent.one will implicitly execute parent/__init__.py and

parent/one/__init__.py. Subsequent imports of parent.two or

parent.three will execute parent/two/__init__.py and

parent/three/__init__.py respectively.

5.2.2.Namespace packages¶

A namespace package is a composite of various portions,

where each portion contributes a subpackage to the parent package. Portions

may reside in different locations on the file system. Portions may also be

found in zip files, on the network, or anywhere else that Python searches

during import. Namespace packages may or may not correspond directly to

objects on the file system; they may be virtual modules that have no concrete

representation.

Namespace packages do not use an ordinary list for their __path__

attribute. They instead use a custom iterable type which will automatically

perform a new search for package portions on the next import attempt within

that package if the path of their parent package (or sys.path for a

top level package) changes.

With namespace packages, there is no parent/__init__.py file. In fact,

there may be multiple parent directories found during import search, where

each one is provided by a different portion. Thus parent/one may not be

physically located next to parent/two. In this case, Python will create a

namespace package for the top-level parent package whenever it or one of

its subpackages is imported.

See also PEP 420 for the namespace package specification.

5.3.Searching¶

To begin the search, Python needs the fully qualified

name of the module (or package, but for the purposes of this discussion, the

difference is immaterial) being imported. This name may come from various

arguments to the import statement, or from the parameters to the

importlib.import_module() or __import__() functions.

This name will be used in various phases of the import search, and it may be

the dotted path to a submodule, e.g. foo.bar.baz. In this case, Python

first tries to import foo, then foo.bar, and finally foo.bar.baz.

If any of the intermediate imports fail, a ModuleNotFoundError is raised.

5.3.1.The module cache¶

The first place checked during import search is sys.modules. This

mapping serves as a cache of all modules that have been previously imported,

including the intermediate paths. So if foo.bar.baz was previously

imported, sys.modules will contain entries for foo, foo.bar,

and foo.bar.baz. Each key will have as its value the corresponding module

object.

During import, the module name is looked up in sys.modules and if

present, the associated value is the module satisfying the import, and the

process completes. However, if the value is None, then a

ModuleNotFoundError is raised. If the module name is missing, Python will

continue searching for the module.

sys.modules is writable. Deleting a key may not destroy the

associated module (as other modules may hold references to it),

but it will invalidate the cache entry for the named module, causing

Python to search anew for the named module upon its next

import. The key can also be assigned to None, forcing the next import

of the module to result in a ModuleNotFoundError.

Beware though, as if you keep a reference to the module object,

invalidate its cache entry in sys.modules, and then re-import the

named module, the two module objects will not be the same. By contrast,

importlib.reload() will reuse the same module object, and simply

reinitialise the module contents by rerunning the module’s code.

5.3.2.Finders and loaders¶

If the named module is not found in sys.modules, then Python’s import

protocol is invoked to find and load the module. This protocol consists of

two conceptual objects, finders and loaders.

A finder’s job is to determine whether it can find the named module using

whatever strategy it knows about. Objects that implement both of these

interfaces are referred to as importers - they return

themselves when they find that they can load the requested module.

Python includes a number of default finders and importers. The first one

knows how to locate built-in modules, and the second knows how to locate

frozen modules. A third default finder searches an import path

for modules. The import path is a list of locations that may

name file system paths or zip files. It can also be extended to search

for any locatable resource, such as those identified by URLs.

The import machinery is extensible, so new finders can be added to extend the

range and scope of module searching.

Finders do not actually load modules. If they can find the named module, they

return a module spec, an encapsulation of the module’s import-related

information, which the import machinery then uses when loading the module.

The following sections describe the protocol for finders and loaders in more

detail, including how you can create and register new ones to extend the

import machinery.

Changed in version 3.4:In previous versions of Python, finders returned loaders

directly, whereas now they return module specs which contain loaders.

Loaders are still used during import but have fewer responsibilities.

5.3.3.Import hooks¶

The import machinery is designed to be extensible; the primary mechanism for

this are the import hooks. There are two types of import hooks: meta

hooks and import path hooks.

Meta hooks are called at the start of import processing, before any other

import processing has occurred, other than sys.modules cache look up.

This allows meta hooks to override sys.path processing, frozen

modules, or even built-in modules. Meta hooks are registered by adding new

finder objects to sys.meta_path, as described below.

Import path hooks are called as part of sys.path (or

package.__path__) processing, at the point where their associated path

item is encountered. Import path hooks are registered by adding new callables

to sys.path_hooks as described below.

5.3.4.The meta path¶

When the named module is not found in sys.modules, Python next

searches sys.meta_path, which contains a list of meta path finder

objects. These finders are queried in order to see if they know how to handle

the named module. Meta path finders must implement a method called

find_spec() which takes three arguments:

a name, an import path, and (optionally) a target module. The meta path

finder can use any strategy it wants to determine whether it can handle

the named module or not.

If the meta path finder knows how to handle the named module, it returns a

spec object. If it cannot handle the named module, it returns None. If

sys.meta_path processing reaches the end of its list without returning

a spec, then a ModuleNotFoundError is raised. Any other exceptions

raised are simply propagated up, aborting the import process.

The find_spec() method of meta path

finders is called with two or three arguments. The first is the fully

qualified name of the module being imported, for example foo.bar.baz.

The second argument is the path entries to use for the module search. For

top-level modules, the second argument is None, but for submodules or

subpackages, the second argument is the value of the parent package’s

__path__ attribute. If the appropriate __path__ attribute cannot

be accessed, a ModuleNotFoundError is raised. The third argument

is an existing module object that will be the target of loading later.

The import system passes in a target module only during reload.

The meta path may be traversed multiple times for a single import request.

For example, assuming none of the modules involved has already been cached,

importing foo.bar.baz will first perform a top level import, calling

mpf.find_spec("foo", None, None) on each meta path finder (mpf). After

foo has been imported, foo.bar will be imported by traversing the

meta path a second time, calling

mpf.find_spec("foo.bar", foo.__path__, None). Once foo.bar has been

imported, the final traversal will call

mpf.find_spec("foo.bar.baz", foo.bar.__path__, None).

Some meta path finders only support top level imports. These importers will

always return None when anything other than None is passed as the

second argument.

Python’s default sys.meta_path has three meta path finders, one that

knows how to import built-in modules, one that knows how to import frozen

modules, and one that knows how to import modules from an import path

(i.e. the path based finder).

Changed in version 3.4:The find_spec() method of meta path

finders replaced find_module(), which

is now deprecated. While it will continue to work without change, the

import machinery will try it only if the finder does not implement

find_spec().

5.4.Loading¶

If and when a module spec is found, the import machinery will use it (and

the loader it contains) when loading the module. Here is an approximation

of what happens during the loading portion of import:

module = None

if spec.loader is not None and hasattr(spec.loader, "create_module"):

# It is assumed "exec_module" will also be defined on the loader.

module = spec.loader.create_module(spec)

if module is None:

module = ModuleType(spec.name)

# The import-related module attributes get set here:

_init_module_attrs(spec, module)

if spec.loader is None:

# unsupported

raise ImportError

if spec.origin is None and spec.submodule_search_locations is not None:

# namespace package

sys.modules[spec.name] = module

elif not hasattr(spec.loader, "exec_module"):

module = spec.loader.load_module(spec.name)

# Set __loader__ and __package__ if missing.

else:

sys.modules[spec.name] = module

try:

spec.loader.exec_module(module)

except BaseException:

try:

del sys.modules[spec.name]

except KeyError:

pass

raise

return sys.modules[spec.name]

Note the following details:

If there is an existing module object with the given name in

sys.modules, import will have already returned it.

The module will exist in sys.modules before the loader

executes the module code. This is crucial because the module code may

(directly or indirectly) import itself; adding it to sys.modules

beforehand prevents unbounded recursion in the worst case and multiple

loading in the best.

If loading fails, the failing module – and only the failing module –

gets removed from sys.modules. Any module already in the

sys.modules cache, and any module that was successfully loaded

as a side-effect, must remain in the cache. This contrasts with

reloading where even the failing module is left in sys.modules.

After the module is created but before execution, the import machinery

sets the import-related module attributes (“_init_module_attrs” in

the pseudo-code example above), as summarized in a

later section.

Module execution is the key moment of loading in which the module’s

namespace gets populated. Execution is entirely delegated to the

loader, which gets to decide what gets populated and how.

The module created during loading and passed to exec_module() may

not be the one returned at the end of import 2.

Changed in version 3.4:The import system has taken over the boilerplate responsibilities of

loaders. These were previously performed by the

importlib.abc.Loader.load_module() method.

5.4.1.Loaders¶

Module loaders provide the critical function of loading: module execution.

The import machinery calls the importlib.abc.Loader.exec_module()

method with a single argument, the module object to execute. Any value

returned from exec_module() is ignored.

Loaders must satisfy the following requirements:

If the module is a Python module (as opposed to a built-in module or a

dynamically loaded extension), the loader should execute the module’s code

in the module’s global name space (module.__dict__).

If the loader cannot execute the module, it should raise an

ImportError, although any other exception raised during

exec_module() will be propagated.

In many cases, the finder and loader can be the same object; in such cases the

find_spec() method would just return a

spec with the loader set to self.

Module loaders may opt in to creating the module object during loading

by implementing a create_module() method.

It takes one argument, the module spec, and returns the new module object

to use during loading. create_module() does not need to set any attributes

on the module object. If the method returns None, the

import machinery will create the new module itself.

New in version 3.4:The create_module() method of loaders.

Changed in version 3.4:The load_module() method was replaced by

exec_module() and the import

machinery assumed all the boilerplate responsibilities of loading.

For compatibility with existing loaders, the import machinery will use

the load_module() method of loaders if it exists and the loader does

not also implement exec_module(). However, load_module() has been

deprecated and loaders should implement exec_module() instead.

The load_module() method must implement all the boilerplate loading

functionality described above in addition to executing the module. All

the same constraints apply, with some additional clarification:

If there is an existing module object with the given name in

sys.modules, the loader must use that existing module.

(Otherwise, importlib.reload() will not work correctly.) If the

named module does not exist in sys.modules, the loader

must create a new module object and add it to sys.modules.

The module must exist in sys.modules before the loader

executes the module code, to prevent unbounded recursion or multiple

loading.

If loading fails, the loader must remove any modules it has inserted

into sys.modules, but it must remove only the failing

module(s), and only if the loader itself has loaded the module(s)

explicitly.

Changed in version 3.5:A DeprecationWarning is raised when exec_module() is defined but

create_module() is not.

Changed in version 3.6:An ImportError is raised when exec_module() is defined but

create_module() is not.

5.4.2.Submodules¶

When a submodule is loaded using any mechanism (e.g. importlib APIs, the

import or import-from statements, or built-in __import__()) a

binding is placed in the parent module’s namespace to the submodule object.

For example, if package spam has a submodule foo, after importing

spam.foo, spam will have an attribute foo which is bound to the

submodule. Let’s say you have the following directory structure:

spam/

__init__.py

foo.py

bar.py

and spam/__init__.py has the following lines in it:

from .foo import Foo

from .bar import Bar

then executing the following puts a name binding to foo and bar in the

spam module:

>>>import spam

>>>spam.foo

>>>spam.bar

Given Python’s familiar name binding rules this might seem surprising, but

it’s actually a fundamental feature of the import system. The invariant

holding is that if you have sys.modules["spam"] and

sys.modules["spam.foo"] (as you would after the above import), the latter

must appear as the foo attribute of the former.

5.4.3.Module spec¶

The import machinery uses a variety of information about each module

during import, especially before loading. Most of the information is

common to all modules. The purpose of a module’s spec is to encapsulate

this import-related information on a per-module basis.

Using a spec during import allows state to be transferred between import

system components, e.g. between the finder that creates the module spec

and the loader that executes it. Most importantly, it allows the

import machinery to perform the boilerplate operations of loading,

whereas without a module spec the loader had that responsibility.

The module’s spec is exposed as the __spec__ attribute on a module object.

See ModuleSpec for details on the contents of

the module spec.

New in version 3.4.

5.4.4.Import-related module attributes¶

The import machinery fills in these attributes on each module object

during loading, based on the module’s spec, before the loader executes

the module.

__name__¶

The __name__ attribute must be set to the fully-qualified name of

the module. This name is used to uniquely identify the module in

the import system.

__loader__¶

The __loader__ attribute must be set to the loader object that

the import machinery used when loading the module. This is mostly

for introspection, but can be used for additional loader-specific

functionality, for example getting data associated with a loader.

__package__¶

The module’s __package__ attribute must be set. Its value must

be a string, but it can be the same value as its __name__. When

the module is a package, its __package__ value should be set to

its __name__. When the module is not a package, __package__

should be set to the empty string for top-level modules, or for

submodules, to the parent package’s name. See PEP 366 for further

details.

This attribute is used instead of __name__ to calculate explicit

relative imports for main modules, as defined in PEP 366. It is

expected to have the same value as __spec__.parent.

Changed in version 3.6:The value of __package__ is expected to be the same as

__spec__.parent.

__spec__¶

The __spec__ attribute must be set to the module spec that was

used when importing the module. Setting __spec__

appropriately applies equally to modules initialized during

interpreter startup. The one exception is __main__,

where __spec__ is set to None in some cases.

When __package__ is not defined, __spec__.parent is used as

a fallback.

New in version 3.4.

Changed in version 3.6:__spec__.parent is used as a fallback when __package__ is

not defined.

__path__¶

If the module is a package (either regular or namespace), the module

object’s __path__ attribute must be set. The value must be

iterable, but may be empty if __path__ has no further significance.

If __path__ is not empty, it must produce strings when iterated

over. More details on the semantics of __path__ are given

below.

Non-package modules should not have a __path__ attribute.

__file__¶

__cached__¶

__file__ is optional. If set, this attribute’s value must be a

string. The import system may opt to leave __file__ unset if it

has no semantic meaning (e.g. a module loaded from a database).

If __file__ is set, it may also be appropriate to set the

__cached__ attribute which is the path to any compiled version of

the code (e.g. byte-compiled file). The file does not need to exist

to set this attribute; the path can simply point to where the

compiled file would exist (see PEP 3147).

It is also appropriate to set __cached__ when __file__ is not

set. However, that scenario is quite atypical. Ultimately, the

loader is what makes use of __file__ and/or __cached__. So

if a loader can load from a cached module but otherwise does not load

from a file, that atypical scenario may be appropriate.

5.4.5.module.__path__¶

By definition, if a module has a __path__ attribute, it is a package.

A package’s __path__ attribute is used during imports of its subpackages.

Within the import machinery, it functions much the same as sys.path,

i.e. providing a list of locations to search for modules during import.

However, __path__ is typically much more constrained than

sys.path.

__path__ must be an iterable of strings, but it may be empty.

The same rules used for sys.path also apply to a package’s

__path__, and sys.path_hooks (described below) are

consulted when traversing a package’s __path__.

A package’s __init__.py file may set or alter the package’s __path__

attribute, and this was typically the way namespace packages were implemented

prior to PEP 420. With the adoption of PEP 420, namespace packages no

longer need to supply __init__.py files containing only __path__

manipulation code; the import machinery automatically sets __path__

correctly for the namespace package.

5.4.6.Module reprs¶

By default, all modules have a usable repr, however depending on the

attributes set above, and in the module’s spec, you can more explicitly

control the repr of module objects.

If the module has a spec (__spec__), the import machinery will try

to generate a repr from it. If that fails or there is no spec, the import

system will craft a default repr using whatever information is available

on the module. It will try to use the module.__name__,

module.__file__, and module.__loader__ as input into the repr,

with defaults for whatever information is missing.

Here are the exact rules used:

If the module has a __spec__ attribute, the information in the spec

is used to generate the repr. The “name”, “loader”, “origin”, and

“has_location” attributes are consulted.

If the module has a __file__ attribute, this is used as part of the

module’s repr.

If the module has no __file__ but does have a __loader__ that is not

None, then the loader’s repr is used as part of the module’s repr.

Otherwise, just use the module’s __name__ in the repr.

Changed in version 3.4:Use of loader.module_repr()

has been deprecated and the module spec is now used by the import

machinery to generate a module repr.

For backward compatibility with Python 3.3, the module repr will be

generated by calling the loader’s

module_repr() method, if defined, before

trying either approach described above. However, the method is deprecated.

5.4.7.Cached bytecode invalidation¶

Before Python loads cached bytecode from a .pyc file, it checks whether the

cache is up-to-date with the source .py file. By default, Python does this

by storing the source’s last-modified timestamp and size in the cache file when

writing it. At runtime, the import system then validates the cache file by

checking the stored metadata in the cache file against the source’s

metadata.

Python also supports “hash-based” cache files, which store a hash of the source

file’s contents rather than its metadata. There are two variants of hash-based

.pyc files: checked and unchecked. For checked hash-based .pyc files,

Python validates the cache file by hashing the source file and comparing the

resulting hash with the hash in the cache file. If a checked hash-based cache

file is found to be invalid, Python regenerates it and writes a new checked

hash-based cache file. For unchecked hash-based .pyc files, Python simply

assumes the cache file is valid if it exists. Hash-based .pyc files

validation behavior may be overridden with the --check-hash-based-pycs

flag.

Changed in version 3.7:Added hash-based .pyc files. Previously, Python only supported

timestamp-based invalidation of bytecode caches.

5.5.The Path Based Finder¶

As mentioned previously, Python comes with several default meta path finders.

One of these, called the path based finder

(PathFinder), searches an import path,

which contains a list of path entries. Each path

entry names a location to search for modules.

The path based finder itself doesn’t know how to import anything. Instead, it

traverses the individual path entries, associating each of them with a

path entry finder that knows how to handle that particular kind of path.

The default set of path entry finders implement all the semantics for finding

modules on the file system, handling special file types such as Python source

code (.py files), Python byte code (.pyc files) and

shared libraries (e.g. .so files). When supported by the zipimport

module in the standard library, the default path entry finders also handle

loading all of these file types (other than shared libraries) from zipfiles.

Path entries need not be limited to file system locations. They can refer to

URLs, database queries, or any other location that can be specified as a

string.

The path based finder provides additional hooks and protocols so that you

can extend and customize the types of searchable path entries. For example,

if you wanted to support path entries as network URLs, you could write a hook

that implements HTTP semantics to find modules on the web. This hook (a

callable) would return a path entry finder supporting the protocol

described below, which was then used to get a loader for the module from the

web.

A word of warning: this section and the previous both use the term finder,

distinguishing between them by using the terms meta path finder and

path entry finder. These two types of finders are very similar,

support similar protocols, and function in similar ways during the import

process, but it’s important to keep in mind that they are subtly different.

In particular, meta path finders operate at the beginning of the import

process, as keyed off the sys.meta_path traversal.

By contrast, path entry finders are in a sense an implementation detail

of the path based finder, and in fact, if the path based finder were to be

removed from sys.meta_path, none of the path entry finder semantics

would be invoked.

5.5.1.Path entry finders¶

The path based finder is responsible for finding and loading

Python modules and packages whose location is specified with a string

path entry. Most path entries name locations in the file system,

but they need not be limited to this.

As a meta path finder, the path based finder implements the

find_spec() protocol previously

described, however it exposes additional hooks that can be used