How do you import a file in python with spaces in the name?

Question

Do I have to take out all the spaces in the file name to import it, or is there some way of telling import that there are spaces?

Answer 1

You should take the spaces out of the filename. Because the filename is used as the identifier for imported modules (i.e. foo.py will be imported as foo) and Python identifiers can't have spaces, this isn't supported by the import statement.

If you really need to do this for some reason, you can use the __import__ function:

foo_bar = __import__("foo bar")

This will import foo bar.py as foo_bar. This behaves a little bit different than the import statement and you should avoid it.

Answer 2

If you want to do something like from foo_bar import * (but with a space instead of an underscore), you can use execfile (docs here):

execfile("foo bar.py")

though it's better practice to avoid spaces in source file names.

Answer 3

You can also use importlib.import_module function, which is a wrapper around __import__.

foo_bar_mod = importlib.import_module("foo bar")

or

foo_bar_mod = importlib.import_module("path.to.foo bar")

More info: https://docs.python.org/2/library/importlib.html