setup.py imports not working correctly

Question

I'm trying to install a simple python library I created and think I may be missing a step. The setup goes fine (or runs at least) but when I import it doesn't work as I expect. The directory structure looks like

Foo/
  setup.py
  README.txt
  LICENSE.txt
    foo/
      __init__.py
      bar.py

I can do

>>> import foo

but then if I try to

>>> foo.bar

I get the following error

AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'bar'

Contrarily no errors occur if I use

>>> from foo import bar

Here is my setup.py

from distutils.core import setup

setup(
    name='Foo',
    version='0.1.0',
    author='ctrl-c',
    author_email='10minutemail@10minutemail.com',
    packages=['foo'],
    license='LICENSE.txt',
    description='Foo does bar.',
    long_description=open('README.txt').read(),
)

I imagine I just missed something, but I've been looking through the docs and haven't found it yet. Thanks.

Answer 1

Your setup.py appears fine. How are you installing your package? For example:

% cd Foo
% python setup.py install --root /tmp/fooroot
% PYTHONPATH=/tmp/fooroot python -c 'from foo import bar; print bar'
<module 'foo.bar' from 'foo/bar.py'>

If you're on an RPM-based system you can create an installable RPM using this:

% python setup.py bdist_rpm
% sudo rpm -i dist/Foo-0.1.0-1.noarch.rpm
# now should be available to python globally

If you want the bar symbol to be visible as an attribute on foo by default, do this:

In foo/__init__.py:

import bar

Answer 2

Your foo is a package, and packages don't automatically import modules. You have to do explicitly. That's just how Python works. You can also do import foo.bar and reference foo.bar then.

Answer 3

if you want to do such a thing, you have to fill the foo/__init__.py with :

import bar

and then, when importing foo, you will be able to use foo.bar

Otherwise, use the

import foo.bar