CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonimport
Nico Schlömer
Nico Schlömer

Reputation: 58791

import everything from a module except a few methods

Is it possible to import everything (*) from an existing Python module except a number of explicitly specified methods?

(Background: Against recommended Python practice it is common in FEniCS to do from dolfin import *. A few of the methods names contain the string "Test" though (e.g., TestFunction()) and are mistaken for unit tests by nose.)

Upvotes: 18

Views: 17018

Answers (3)

xuancong84
xuancong84

Reputation: 1609

@alexander-zhukov's solution will work most of the time, but not when the imported module coincidentally contains a variable called globals.

For example,

to_exclude = ['abort']
from flask import *
for name in to_exclude:
    del globals()[name]

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
TypeError: 'module' object is not callable

The error is because the flask package contains a namespace called globals (that cannot be called) which will overwrite your current global symbol globals.

The following solution will work for flask and others:

to_exclude = ['abort']
from flask import *
for name in to_exclude:
    __builtins__.globals().pop(name)

However ridiculously, it does not work if you open a Python console and type in the commands manually. I think this is a defect of Python 3. If you want this to work in a Python console, then you have to explicitly import the builtins module:

import builtins
to_exclude = ['abort']
from flask import *
for name in to_exclude:
    builtins.globals().pop(name)

Upvotes: 2

Alexander Zhukov
Alexander Zhukov

Reputation: 4557

In case you don't have an access to the module, you can also simply remove these methods or variables from a global namespace. Here's how this could be done:

to_exclude = ['foo']

from somemodule import *

for name in to_exclude:
    del globals()[name]

Upvotes: 22

karthikr
karthikr

Reputation: 99640

Yes, you can define the __all__ module

Add 

__all__ = ["echo", "surround", "reverse"] #Or whatever your module names are

to the file which has these modules, or __init__.py of the package you want to import from.

Now

from module import *

imports only the specified modules in __all__

Upvotes: 15

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