Get modules names from a package in python

Question

Lets say that I have a python package and I want to list out all the modules within this package. i.e.

>>> import my_package
>>> import inspect
>>> inspect.getmembers(my_package, inspect.ismodule)
>>> []

For some reason I am getting an empty list. Now if I manually load a module from the package then:

>>> import my_package.module_a
>>> inspect.getmembers(my_package, inspect.ismodule)
>>> ['module_a, <module '....'>]

Assuming that I have multiple modules and I don't want to load them one by one is there any other way to do it? (p.s. from my_package import * won't work).

Furthermore do you know what is causing this behavior? Is anything that has to do with namespaces?

P.S Packages are not locally installed, I am loading everything from a server.

What happens if you access my_package.module_a before the second import? — jonrsharpe
– jonrsharpe, Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 18:42

Brendan Abel · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-06 18:45:12Z

1

There isn't really a guaranteed way to get every possible module that could ever exist within a package namespace. You can search the package directory for subpackage directories and module files, but there's nothing stopping some bit of code from just creating a types.ModuleType object and attaching it the top package. If the package you're dealing with is a namespace package, there could be any number of modules and subpackages located in different locations on disk.

answered Jul 6, 2017 at 18:45

Brendan Abel

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