Trying to Import Module with the Same Name as a Built-In Module Causes an Import Error

Trying to import module with the same name as a built-in module causes an import error

You will want to read about Absolute and Relative Imports which addresses this very problem. Use:

from __future__ import absolute_import

Using that, any unadorned package name will always refer to the top level package. You will then need to use relative imports (from .email import ...) to access your own package.

NOTE: The above from ... line needs to be put into any 2.x Python .py files above the import ... lines you're using. In Python 3.x this is the default behavior and so is no longer needed.

Python error ImportError: No module named

Based on your comments to orip's post, I guess this is what happened:

1. You edited __init__.py on windows.
2. The windows editor added something non-printing, perhaps a carriage-return (end-of-line in Windows is CR/LF; in unix it is LF only), or perhaps a CTRL-Z (windows end-of-file).
3. You used WinSCP to copy the file to your unix box.
4. WinSCP thought: "This has something that's not basic text; I'll put a .bin extension to indicate binary data."
5. The missing __init__.py (now called __init__.py.bin) means python doesn't understand toolkit as a package.
6. You create __init__.py in the appropriate directory and everything works... ?

Can I import a local module with the same name as a standard-library one?

Rename your internal file to something like my_queue.py and import it into your file like this. That avoids bad practices like from queue import * and name conflicts with the standard library which is most likely the problem you are running into now.

import my_queue

def driver():
    q = my_queue.Queue()
    for line in df:
        if 'received' in line:
            q.enqueue(line)
            print("Adding job " + new_item.job_ID + " to the queue with the timestamp: " + new_item.time_stamp + ".")
            print("The prority of the job is: " + new_item.job_priority)
            print("The job type is: " + new_item.job_type)

Unable to import a module that is definitely installed

In my case, it is permission problem. The package was somehow installed with root rw permission only, other user just cannot rw to it!

Importing from builtin library when module with same name exists

The accepted solution contains a now-deprecated approach.

The importlib documentation here gives a good example of the more appropriate way to load a module directly from a file path for python >= 3.5:

import importlib.util
import sys

# For illustrative purposes.
import tokenize
file_path = tokenize.__file__  # returns "/path/to/tokenize.py"
module_name = tokenize.__name__  # returns "tokenize"

spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location(module_name, file_path)
module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
sys.modules[module_name] = module
spec.loader.exec_module(module)

So, you can load any .py file from a path and set the module name to be whatever you want. So just adjust the module_name to be whatever custom name you'd like the module to have upon importing.

To load a package instead of a single file, file_path should be the path to the package's root __init__.py

ModuleNotFoundError' when trying to import module from imported package

FIRST, if you want to be able to access man1.py from man1test.py AND manModules.py from man1.py, you need to properly setup your files as packages and modules.

Packages are a way of structuring Python’s module namespace by using
“dotted module names”. For example, the module name A.B designates a
submodule named B in a package named A.

...

When importing the package, Python searches through the directories on
sys.path looking for the package subdirectory.

The __init__.py files are required to make Python treat the
directories as containing packages; this is done to prevent
directories with a common name, such as string, from unintentionally
hiding valid modules that occur later on the module search path.

You need to set it up to something like this:

man
|- __init__.py
|- Mans
   |- __init__.py
   |- man1.py
|- MansTest
   |- __init.__.py
   |- SoftLib
      |- Soft
         |- __init__.py
         |- SoftWork
            |- __init__.py
            |- manModules.py
      |- Unittests
         |- __init__.py
         |- man1test.py

SECOND, for the "ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'Soft'" error caused by from ...Mans import man1 in man1test.py, the documented solution to that is to add man1.py to sys.path since Mans is outside the MansTest package. See The Module Search Path from the Python documentation. But if you don't want to modify sys.path directly, you can also modify PYTHONPATH:

sys.path is initialized from these locations:

• The directory containing the input script (or the current directory when no file is specified).
• PYTHONPATH (a list of directory names, with the same syntax as the shell variable PATH).
• The installation-dependent default.

THIRD, for from ...MansTest.SoftLib import Soft which you said "was to facilitate the aforementioned import statement in man1.py", that's now how imports work. If you want to import Soft.SoftLib in man1.py, you have to setup man1.py to find Soft.SoftLib and import it there directly.

With that said, here's how I got it to work.

man1.py:

from Soft.SoftWork.manModules import *
# no change to import statement but need to add Soft to PYTHONPATH

def foo():
    print("called foo in man1.py")
    print("foo call module1 from manModules: " + module1())

man1test.py

# no need for "from ...MansTest.SoftLib import Soft" to facilitate importing..
from ...Mans import man1

man1.foo()

manModules.py

def module1():
    return "module1 in manModules"

Terminal output:

$ python3 -m man.MansTest.Unittests.man1test
Traceback (most recent call last):
  ...
    from ...Mans import man1
  File "/temp/man/Mans/man1.py", line 2, in <module>
    from Soft.SoftWork.manModules import *
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'Soft'

$ PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/temp/man/MansTest/SoftLib
$ export PYTHONPATH
$ echo $PYTHONPATH
:/temp/man/MansTest/SoftLib
$ python3 -m man.MansTest.Unittests.man1test
called foo in man1.py
foo called module1 from manModules: module1 in manModules 

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As a suggestion, maybe re-think the purpose of those SoftLib files. Is it some sort of "bridge" between man1.py and man1test.py? The way your files are setup right now, I don't think it's going to work as you expect it to be. Also, it's a bit confusing for the code-under-test (man1.py) to be importing stuff from under the test folder (MansTest).

Most likely due to circular import in Python

It seems like the program file you have created is named threading.py, and you are importing a module also called threading. This causes a circular import because your file is shadowing the built-in module.

Please rename your program (e.g., threading_example.py).

import error: 'No module named' *does* exist

My usual trick is to simply print sys.path in the actual context where the import problem happens. In your case it'd seem that the place for the print is in /home/hughdbrown/.local/bin/pserve . Then check dirs & files in the places that path shows..

You do that by first having:

import sys

in python 3 with the print function:

print(sys.path)

or in python 2 with print expression:

print sys.path

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