How to import all submodules?

Edit: Here's one way to recursively import everything at runtime...

(Contents of __init__.py in top package directory)

import pkgutil

__all__ = []
for loader, module_name, is_pkg in pkgutil.walk_packages(__path__):
    __all__.append(module_name)
    _module = loader.find_module(module_name).load_module(module_name)
    globals()[module_name] = _module

I'm not using __import__(__path__+'.'+module_name) here, as it's difficult to properly recursively import packages using it. If you don't have nested sub-packages, and wanted to avoid using globals()[module_name], though, it's one way to do it.

There's probably a better way, but this is the best I can do, anyway.

Original Answer (For context, ignore othwerwise. I misunderstood the question initially):

What does your scripts/__init__.py look like? It should be something like:

import script1
import script2
import script3
__all__ = ['script1', 'script2', 'script3']

You could even do without defining __all__, but things (pydoc, if nothing else) will work more cleanly if you define it, even if it's just a list of what you imported.


This is based on the answer that kolypto provided, but his answer does not perform recursive import of packages, whereas this does. Although not required by the main question, I believe recursive import applies and can be very useful in many similar situations. I, for one, found this question when searching on the topic.

This is a nice, clean way of performing the import of the subpackage's modules, and should be portable as well, and it uses the standard lib for python 2.7+ / 3.x.

import importlib
import pkgutil


def import_submodules(package, recursive=True):
    """ Import all submodules of a module, recursively, including subpackages

    :param package: package (name or actual module)
    :type package: str | module
    :rtype: dict[str, types.ModuleType]
    """
    if isinstance(package, str):
        package = importlib.import_module(package)
    results = {}
    for loader, name, is_pkg in pkgutil.walk_packages(package.__path__):
        full_name = package.__name__ + '.' + name
        results[full_name] = importlib.import_module(full_name)
        if recursive and is_pkg:
            results.update(import_submodules(full_name))
    return results

Usage:

# from main.py, as per the OP's project structure
import scripts
import_submodules(scripts)

# Alternatively, from scripts.__init__.py
import_submodules(__name__)

Simply works, and allows relative import inside packages:

def import_submodules(package_name):
    """ Import all submodules of a module, recursively

    :param package_name: Package name
    :type package_name: str
    :rtype: dict[types.ModuleType]
    """
    package = sys.modules[package_name]
    return {
        name: importlib.import_module(package_name + '.' + name)
        for loader, name, is_pkg in pkgutil.walk_packages(package.__path__)
    }

Usage:

__all__ = import_submodules(__name__).keys()