Python: Write function in module to import packages

Question

I am trying to write a function, which is itself loaded, to quickly import a bunch of modules globally.

I thought that, essentially, loaded modules could be treated as variables so I tried:

def loadMods():
 global np
 import numpy as np

and when I loaded numpy (calling np) there was no problem.

What I then did was to create a separate .py file called loadTest containing

# loadTest module
# coding: utf-8
def loadMod():
 global np
 import numpy as np

Then attempted to import numpy using this .py file in python (2.7):

import loadTest
loadTest.loadMod()

but now when attempting calling np I get

File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'np' is not defined

Why does this occur? Any help or alternative ways of doing this would be much appreciated. Thanks a bunch :)

• Daniel Roseman: All you've done is to make np available inside your loadTest module, which doesn't really help at all.
• user3235916: Thats kind of what I was expecting. Thanks for the clarification :)

Answer 1

Instead of making a function to do this, why not make another module? You could name it something like modules.py and put all of your imports in there:

import numpy as np
import os
import sys
...

Then, all you need to do is a wildcard import:

from modules import *

and everything will be made available.

Answer 2

You must first define np like that.

In loadTest:

np=None

In somewhere other

import loadTest
loadTest.loadMod()
np=loadTest.np

• Blckknght: This won't work. Each module's global namespace is separate, and so the global statement in loadMod will only ever write the np name in its own module.