I'm developing/testing a package in my local directory. I want to import it in the interpreter (v2.5), but sys.path does not include the current directory. Right now I type in "sys.path.insert(0,'.')". Is there a better way?
Also, "from . import mypackage" fails with this error: "ValueError: Attempted relative import in non-package"
not bad, But sys.path should include current directory already.
Edit: import . (or from . import sth) maybe not a good practice, why not just import mypackage
See the documentation for sys.path:
http://docs.python.org/library/sys.html#sys.path
To quote:
If the script directory is not available (e.g. if the interpreter is invoked interactively or if the script is read from standard input), path[0] is the empty string, which directs Python to search modules in the current directory first.
So, there's no need to monkey with sys.path if you're starting the python interpreter from the directory containing your module.
Also, to import your package, just do:
import mypackage
Since the directory containing the package is already in sys.path, it should work fine.
You can use relative imports only from in a module that was in turn imported as part of a package -- your script or interactive interpreter wasn't, so of course from . import (which means "import from the same package I got imported from") doesn't work. import mypackage will be fine once you ensure the parent directory of mypackage is in sys.path (how you managed to get your current directory away from sys.path I don't know -- do you have something strange in site.py, or...?)
To get your current directory back into sys.path there is in fact no better way than putting it there;-).
A simple way to make it work is to run your script from the parent directory using python's -m flag, e.g. python -m packagename.scriptname. Obviously in this situation you need an __init__.py file to turn your directory into a package.