import module from string variable

The __import__ function can be a bit hard to understand.

If you change

i = __import__('matplotlib.text')

i = __import__('matplotlib.text', fromlist=[''])

then i will refer to matplotlib.text.

In Python 2.7 and Python 3.1 or later, you can use importlib:

import importlib

i = importlib.import_module("matplotlib.text")

Some notes

If you’re trying to import something from a sub-folder e.g. ./feature/email.py, the code will look like importlib.import_module("feature.email")
You can’t import anything if there is no __init__.py in the folder with file you are trying to import