How do I find the modules that are available for import from within a package?

Question

Is there a way of knowing which modules are available to import from inside a package?

Answer 1

Many packages will include a list called __all__, which lists the member modules. This is used when python does from x import *. You can read more about that here.

If the package does not define __all__, you'll have to do something like the answer to a question I asked earlier, here.

Answer 2

import fred

print dir(fred)

Answer 3

You have the source.

Look at the files inside the package directory. Those modules are available for you to import.

Answer 4

dir([object]);

Without arguments, dir() return the list of names in the current local scope. With an argument, attempt to return a list of valid attributes for that object.

So, in the case of a module, such as 'sys':

>>> import sys
>>> dir(sys)
['__displayhook__', '__doc__', '__excepthook__', '__name__', '__stderr__', '__stdin__', '__stdout__', '_current_frames', '_getframe', 'api_version', 'argv', 'builtin_module_names', 'byteorder', 'call_tracing', 'callstats', 'copyright', 'displayhook', 'exc_clear', 'exc_info', 'exc_type', 'excepthook', 'exec_prefix', 'executable', 'exit', 'getcheckinterval', 'getdefaultencoding', 'getdlopenflags', 'getfilesystemencoding', 'getrecursionlimit', 'getrefcount', 'hexversion', 'maxint', 'maxunicode', 'meta_path', 'modules', 'path', 'path_hooks', 'path_importer_cache', 'platform', 'prefix', 'ps1', 'ps2', 'pydebug', 'setcheckinterval', 'setdlopenflags', 'setprofile', 'setrecursionlimit', 'settrace', 'stderr', 'stdin', 'stdout', 'subversion', 'version', 'version_info', 'warnoptions']

That's all there is to it.