CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonunit-testingpython-3.x
Dave
Dave

Reputation: 3956

What are the reserved Python module/package names?

I got a strange error while working with Python unittest. I have two folders in my project:

project
    code
        __init__.py        (empty)
        app.py             (defines my App class)
    test
        test.py            (contains my unit tests)

test.py is:

import os, sys, unittest
sys.path.insert(1, os.path.join(sys.path[0],'..'))
from code.app import App

class test_func1(unittest.TestCase):
    ...

When I run test.py I get the message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<frozen importlib._bootstrap>", line 2218, in _find_and_load_unlocked
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute '__path__'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "...test.py, line 5, in <module>
    from code.app import App
ImportError: No module named 'code.app': 'code' is not a package

After verifying that __init__.py was present and banging my head for a while, on a whim I changed the name of the app directory from code to prog:

import os, sys, unittest
sys.path.insert(1, os.path.join(sys.path[0],'..'))
from prog.app import App

... and everything was suddenly fine. Unittest imported my app properly and ran the tests.

I've searched through https://docs.python.org/3.5/reference/lexical_analysis.html#keywords and https://docs.python.org/3/reference/import.html#path-entry-finders and don't see any indication that code is an illegal directory name. Where would this be documented, and what other directory names are reserved?

System: python 3.4.3 [MSC v1600 32 bit] on win32, Windows 7

Upvotes: 6

Views: 3590

Answers (1)

chepner
chepner

Reputation: 531808

code isn't reserved, but it is already defined in the standard library, where is it a regular module and not package. To import from your package, you should use a relative import.

from .code.app import App

Upvotes: 6

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