What is the most pythonic way to import modules in python

Question

Can anyone suggest me what is the most pythonic way to import modules in python? Let me explain - i have read a lot of python code and found several different ways of how t

Answer 1

Do not use from module import *. This will pollute the namespace and is highly frowned upon. However, you can import specific things using from; from module import something. This keeps the namespace clean. On larger projects if you use a wildcard you could be importing 2 foo or 2 bar into the same namespace.

PEP 8 says to have imports on separate lines. For instance:

import os
import sys
import yourmodule
from yourmodule import specific_stuff

One thing I do is alphabetize my imports into two groups. One is std/third party and the second is internal modules.

Answer 2

People have already commented on the major style issues (at the top of the script, etc), so I'll skip that.

For my imports, I usually have them ordered alphabetically by module name (regardless of whether it's 'import' or 'from ... import ...'. I split it into groups of: standard lib; third party modules (from pypi or other); internal modules.

import os
import system

import twisted
import zope

import mymodule_1
import mymodule_2

Answer 3

It really doesn't matter, so long as you don't from ... import *. The rest is all taste and getting around cyclic import issues. PEP 8 states that you should import at the top of the script, but even that isn't set in stone.

Answer 4

Python's "import" loads a Python module into its own namespace, so that you have to add the module name followed by a dot in front of references to any names from the imported module

import animals
animals.Elephant()

"from" loads a Python module into the current namespace, so that you can refer to it without the need to mention the module name again

from animals import Elephant
Elephant()

or

from animals import *
Elephant()

using from is good, (but using a wildcard import is discouraging). but if you have a big scaled project, importing from diffrent modules may cause naming confilicts. Like importing Elephant() function from two diffrent modules will cause problem (like using wildcard imports with *)

So, if you have a large scaled project where you import many diffrent things from other modules, it is better to use import and using imported things with module_name.your_class_or_function. Otherwise, use from notation...