Just Modules

project
├── colours.py
├── main.py
└── messages.py

Modules we would like to import

colours.py

def rainbow():
    return "red orange yellow green blue indigo violet".split()

def dull():
    return "beige brown taupe".split()

messages.py

def message_one():
    return "I came from one"

def message_two():
    return "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (apparently)"

Our main program

main.py

import colours
import messages

print(colours.dull())
print(messages.message_two())
print(colours.rainbow())

and this runs fine:

python main.py
['beige', 'brown', 'taupe']
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (apparently)
['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue', 'indigo', 'violet']

Can we import individual functions?

main.py

from messages import message_one

print(message_one())

yep, that's fine:

python main.py
I came from one

What about importing *?

This does work but it's not recommended. (Ruff complains about it in VsCode)

main.py

from messages import *

print(message_one())
print(message_two())

yep, that's fine:

python main.py
I came from one
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (apparently)

What about relative imports

This doesn't appear to work:

main.py

from . import colours

print(colours.dull())

python main.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Craig\python_projects\import_test\ex01_just_modules\main.py", line 1, in <module>
    from . import colours
ImportError: attempted relative import with no known parent package

and similarly, the following is not valid:

main.py

from .colours import dull

print(dull())

python main.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\Craig\python_projects\import_test\ex01_just_modules\main.py", line 1, in <module>
    from .colours import dull
ImportError: attempted relative import with no known parent package

You can actually import this way, but it involves a discussion about packages. See packages