import multiple modules with same name

[Gary Herron]

Christian Bird wrote:
> Is it possible to import multiple modules with the same name from
> different locations?  I'm using two different pieces of software, both
> of which have a module named util.py.  I know that I can modify
> sys.path to fix which util gets imported when I do:
>
> import util
>
> I'd like to be able to do something like:
>
> import sys
> sys.path.append("/somedir1/")
> import util as util1
> sys.path.insert(0, "/somedir2/")
> import util as util2
>
> But it appears that once python imports a module, it will never look
> for a module with the same name again.  Is there any way to get around
> this?  I'd rather not rename either of the util modules as other
> pieces of software use them (but the others never use both of them of
> course) and I don't want to break them or have multiple copies of the
> code in different named files.  I'm appreciative of anyone's ideas.
>
> -- Chris
>
>   
If your two "pieces of software" are in fact Python packages (i.e., the 
directories have files named __init__.py),
then you can import each this way:

from package1 import util as util1
from package2 import util as util2

If they are not packages, then they should be, and you can make them so 
by creating empty files named __init__.py in each directory.