Importing a Python File by Name

post by jefftk (jkaufman) · 2024-01-25T16:00:13.210Z · LW · GW · 7 comments

Let's say you have a python script:

2024-01-24--evaluate-chimeras.py

And you want to pull a section of it out into a separate file:

2024-01-25--strand-split-artifacts.py

You would hope you could just do something like:

import "/path/to/2024-01-25--strand-split-artifacts.py"

But this doesn't work: import wants a module name, not a filename. The simplest way I know to import a python file from a path is:

import sys
import importlib

sys.path.append("/path/to/")
ssa = importlib.import_module("2024-01-25--strand-split-artifacts")

There are a lot of complicated ways to do this, some of which avoid needing to add something to sys.path, but for quick one-off research code better to keep it simple.

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