Importing Modules

The modules described in this chapter provide new ways to import other Python modules and hooks for customizing the import process.

The full list of modules described in this chapter is:

• zipimport Import modules from Zip archives
  • zipimporter Objects
  • Examples
• pkgutil Package extension utility
• modulefinder Find modules used by a script
  • Example usage of ModuleFinder
• runpy Locating and executing Python modules
• importlib The implementation of import
  • Introduction
  • Functions
  • importlib.abc Abstract base classes related to import
  • importlib.machinery Importers and path hooks
  • importlib.util Utility code for importers
  • Examples
    • Importing programmatically
    • Checking if a module can be imported
    • Importing a source file directly
    • Implementing lazy imports
    • Setting up an importer
    • Approximating importlib.import_module()
• importlib.resources Package resource reading, opening and access
  • Functional API
• importlib.resources.abc Abstract base classes for resources
• importlib.metadata Accessing package metadata
  • Overview
  • Functional API
    • Entry points
    • Distribution metadata
    • Distribution versions
    • Distribution files
    • Distribution requirements
    • Mapping import to distribution packages
  • Distributions
  • Distribution Discovery
  • Implementing Custom Providers
    • Example
• The initialization of the sys.path module search path
  • Virtual Environments
  • _pth files
  • Embedded Python