How to import classes defined in __init__.py

1. 'lib/'s parent directory must be in sys.path.

2. Your 'lib/__init__.py' might look like this:

   from . import settings # or just 'import settings' on old Python versionsclass Helper(object):      pass

Then the following example should work:

from lib.settings import Valuesfrom lib import Helper

Answer to the edited version of the question:

__init__.py defines how your package looks from outside. If you need to use Helper in settings.py then define Helper in a different file e.g., 'lib/helper.py'.

.|   `-- import_submodule.py    `-- lib    |-- __init__.py    |-- foo    |   |-- __init__.py    |   `-- someobject.py    |-- helper.py    `-- settings.py2 directories, 6 files

The command:

$ python import_submodule.py

Output:

settingshelperHelper in lib.settingssomeobjectHelper in lib.foo.someobject# ./import_submodule.pyimport fnmatch, osfrom lib.settings import Valuesfrom lib import Helperprintfor root, dirs, files in os.walk('.'):    for f in fnmatch.filter(files, '*.py'):        print "# %s/%s" % (os.path.basename(root), f)        print open(os.path.join(root, f)).read()        print# lib/helper.pyprint 'helper'class Helper(object):    def __init__(self, module_name):        print "Helper in", module_name# lib/settings.pyprint "settings"import helperclass Values(object):    passhelper.Helper(__name__)# lib/__init__.py#from __future__ import absolute_importimport settings, foo.someobject, helperHelper = helper.Helper# foo/someobject.pyprint "someobject"from .. import helperhelper.Helper(__name__)# foo/__init__.pyimport someobject

If lib/__init__.py defines the Helper class then in settings.py you can use:

from . import Helper

This works because . is the current directory, and acts as a synonym for the lib package from the point of view of the settings module. Note that it is not necessary to export Helper via __all__.

(Confirmed with python 2.7.10, running on Windows.)

You just put them in __init__.py.

So with test/classes.py being:

class A(object): passclass B(object): pass

... and test/__init__.py being:

from classes import *class Helper(object): pass

You can import test and have access to A, B and Helper

>>> import test>>> test.A<class 'test.classes.A'>>>> test.B<class 'test.classes.B'>>>> test.Helper<class 'test.Helper'>