[Tutor] Querying a packages modules?

[Dave Angel]

Eric Pavey wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 4:09 AM, Kent Johnson <kent37 at tds.net> wrote:
>
>   
>> On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 9:31 PM, Eric Pavey <warpcat at gmail.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> Say I have this package layout
>>>
>>> \myPackage
>>>
>>> __init__.py
>>> moduleA.py
>>> moduleB.py
>>>
>>> Is there a way (and I'm sure there is...) to query, for a given package
>>> level, which modules live under it?
>>> I thought I could do it like so:
>>>
>>> import myPackage
>>> goodQualityInfo = dir(myPackage)
>>>       
>> One way to do this is to include an __all__ attribute in __init__.p]:
>> __all__ = ['moduleA', 'moduleB']
>>
>> Then instead of dir(myPackage) use myPackage.__all__.
>>
>> The name is standard though it is usually used for a slightly different
>> purpose:
>> http://docs.python.org/tutorial/modules.html#importing-from-a-package
>>
>> Kent
>>
>>     
>
> Thanks.  I was considering that too, but I want to be able to have people
> drop modules in that dir and "be done with it":  Not also have them also
> need to update __all__ in __init__.py
> Appreciate the suggestion though.
> My current hacky plan is just query the location on disk of the imported
> package, then do a dir search for .py files in that dir, and process those.
> Seems clunky though.
>
>   
Doesn't seem clunky to me.  And if you do it in __init__.py, you can use 
the __file__ attribute to get your base directory.  Just put the results 
in __all__ and you combine both ideas.

DaveA