List all the modules that are part of a python package?

Question

Is there a straightforward way to find all the modules that are part of a python package? I've found this old discussion, which is not really conclusive, but I'd love to have a definite answer before I roll out my own solution based on os.listdir().

Answer 1

Here's one way, off the top of my head:

>>> import os
>>> filter(lambda i: type(i) == type(os), [getattr(os, j) for j in dir(os)])
[<module 'UserDict' from '/usr/lib/python2.5/UserDict.pyc'>, <module 'copy_reg' from '/usr/lib/python2.5/copy_reg.pyc'>, <module 'errno' (built-in)>, <module 'posixpath' from '/usr/lib/python2.5/posixpath.pyc'>, <module 'sys' (built-in)>]

It could certainly be cleaned up and improved.

EDIT: Here's a slightly nicer version:

>>> [m[1] for m in filter(lambda a: type(a[1]) == type(os), os.__dict__.items())]
[<module 'copy_reg' from '/usr/lib/python2.5/copy_reg.pyc'>, <module 'UserDict' from '/usr/lib/python2.5/UserDict.pyc'>, <module 'posixpath' from '/usr/lib/python2.5/posixpath.pyc'>, <module 'errno' (built-in)>, <module 'sys' (built-in)>]
>>> [m[0] for m in filter(lambda a: type(a[1]) == type(os), os.__dict__.items())]
['_copy_reg', 'UserDict', 'path', 'errno', 'sys']

NOTE: This will also find modules that might not necessarily be located in a subdirectory of the package, if they're pulled in in its __init__.py file, so it depends on what you mean by "part of" a package.

Answer 2

Yes, you want something based on pkgutil or similar -- this way you can treat all packages alike regardless if they are in eggs or zips or so (where os.listdir won't help).

import pkgutil

# this is the package we are inspecting -- for example 'email' from stdlib
import email

package = email
for importer, modname, ispkg in pkgutil.iter_modules(package.__path__):
    print "Found submodule %s (is a package: %s)" % (modname, ispkg)

How to import them too? You can just use __import__ as normal:

import pkgutil

# this is the package we are inspecting -- for example 'email' from stdlib
import email

package = email
prefix = package.__name__ + "."
for importer, modname, ispkg in pkgutil.iter_modules(package.__path__, prefix):
    print "Found submodule %s (is a package: %s)" % (modname, ispkg)
    module = __import__(modname, fromlist="dummy")
    print "Imported", module

Answer 3

The right tool for this job is pkgutil.walk_packages.

To list all the modules on your system:

import pkgutil
for importer, modname, ispkg in pkgutil.walk_packages(path=None, onerror=lambda x: None):
    print(modname)

Be aware that walk_packages imports all subpackages, but not submodules.

If you wish to list all submodules of a certain package then you can use something like this:

import pkgutil
import scipy
package=scipy
for importer, modname, ispkg in pkgutil.walk_packages(path=package.__path__,
                                                      prefix=package.__name__+'.',
                                                      onerror=lambda x: None):
    print(modname)

iter_modules only lists the modules which are one-level deep. walk_packages gets all the submodules. In the case of scipy, for example, walk_packages returns

scipy.stats.stats

while iter_modules only returns

scipy.stats

The documentation on pkgutil (http://docs.python.org/library/pkgutil.html) does not list all the interesting functions defined in /usr/lib/python2.6/pkgutil.py.

Perhaps this means the functions are not part of the "public" interface and are subject to change.

However, at least as of Python 2.6 (and perhaps earlier versions?) pkgutil comes with a walk_packages method which recursively walks through all the modules available.