Importing module from string variable using “__import__” gives different results than a normal import statement

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The __import__ function can be a bit hard to understand.

If you change

i = __import__('matplotlib.text')

to

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

then i will refer to matplotlib.text.

In 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")

  • Before Python 3.3 you could not import anything if there was no __init__.py in the folder with file you were trying to import (see caveats before deciding if you want to keep the file for backward compatibility e.g. with pytest).

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