For Python 3.5+ use (docs):

import importlib.util
import sys
spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location("module.name", "/path/to/file.py")
foo = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
sys.modules["module.name"] = foo
spec.loader.exec_module(foo)
foo.MyClass()

For Python 3.3 and 3.4 use:

from importlib.machinery import SourceFileLoader

foo = SourceFileLoader("module.name", "/path/to/file.py").load_module()
foo.MyClass()

(Although this has been deprecated in Python 3.4.)

For Python 2 use:

import imp

foo = imp.load_source('module.name', '/path/to/file.py')
foo.MyClass()

There are equivalent convenience functions for compiled Python files and DLLs.

See also http://bugs.python.org/issue21436.

The advantage of adding a path to sys.path (over using imp) is that it simplifies things when importing more than one module from a single package. For example:

import sys
# the mock-0.3.1 dir contains testcase.py, testutils.py & mock.py
sys.path.append('/foo/bar/mock-0.3.1')

from testcase import TestCase
from testutils import RunTests
from mock import Mock, sentinel, patch

To import your module, you need to add its directory to the environment variable, either temporarily or permanently.

Temporarily

import sys
sys.path.append("/path/to/my/modules/")
import my_module

Permanently

Adding the following line to your .bashrc (or alternative) file in Linux and excecute source ~/.bashrc (or alternative) in the terminal:

export PYTHONPATH="${PYTHONPATH}:/path/to/my/modules/"

Credit/Source: saarrrr, another Stack Exchange question

If your top-level module is not a file but is packaged as a directory with __init__.py, then the accepted solution almost works, but not quite. In Python 3.5+ the following code is needed (note the added line that begins with 'sys.modules'):

MODULE_PATH = "/path/to/your/module/__init__.py"
MODULE_NAME = "mymodule"
import importlib
import sys
spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location(MODULE_NAME, MODULE_PATH)
module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
sys.modules[spec.name] = module 
spec.loader.exec_module(module)

Without this line, when exec_module is executed, it tries to bind relative imports in your top level __init__.py to the top level module name -- in this case "mymodule". But "mymodule" isn't loaded yet so you'll get the error "SystemError: Parent module 'mymodule' not loaded, cannot perform relative import". So you need to bind the name before you load it. The reason for this is the fundamental invariant of the relative import system: "The invariant holding is that if you have sys.modules['spam'] and sys.modules['spam.foo'] (as you would after the above import), the latter must appear as the foo attribute of the former" as discussed here.

You can also do something like this and add the directory that the configuration file is sitting in to the Python load path, and then just do a normal import, assuming you know the name of the file in advance, in this case "config".

Messy, but it works.

configfile = '~/config.py'

import os
import sys

sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(os.path.expanduser(configfile)))

import config

You can use the

load_source(module_name, path_to_file)

method from the imp module.

Do you mean load or import?

You can manipulate the sys.path list specify the path to your module, and then import your module. For example, given a module at:

/foo/bar.py

You could do:

import sys
sys.path[0:0] = ['/foo'] # Puts the /foo directory at the start of your path
import bar

You can do this using __import__ and chdir:

def import_file(full_path_to_module):
    try:
        import os
        module_dir, module_file = os.path.split(full_path_to_module)
        module_name, module_ext = os.path.splitext(module_file)
        save_cwd = os.getcwd()
        os.chdir(module_dir)
        module_obj = __import__(module_name)
        module_obj.__file__ = full_path_to_module
        globals()[module_name] = module_obj
        os.chdir(save_cwd)
    except Exception as e:
        raise ImportError(e)
    return module_obj


import_file('/home/somebody/somemodule.py')

If we have scripts in the same project but in different directory means, we can solve this problem by the following method.

In this situation utils.py is in src/main/util/

import sys
sys.path.append('./')

import src.main.util.utils
#or
from src.main.util.utils import json_converter # json_converter is example method

I believe you can use imp.find_module() and imp.load_module() to load the specified module. You'll need to split the module name off of the path, i.e. if you wanted to load /home/mypath/mymodule.py you'd need to do:

imp.find_module('mymodule', '/home/mypath/')

...but that should get the job done.

Create Python module test.py:

import sys
sys.path.append("<project-path>/lib/")
from tes1 import Client1
from tes2 import Client2
import tes3

Create Python module test_check.py:

from test import Client1
from test import Client2
from test import test3

We can import the imported module from module.

There's a package that's dedicated to this specifically:

from thesmuggler import smuggle

# À la `import weapons`
weapons = smuggle('weapons.py')

# À la `from contraband import drugs, alcohol`
drugs, alcohol = smuggle('drugs', 'alcohol', source='contraband.py')

# À la `from contraband import drugs as dope, alcohol as booze`
dope, booze = smuggle('drugs', 'alcohol', source='contraband.py')

It's tested across Python versions (Jython and PyPy too), but it might be overkill depending on the size of your project.

To add to Sebastian Rittau's answer: At least for CPython, there's pydoc, and, while not officially declared, importing files is what it does:

from pydoc import importfile
module = importfile('/path/to/module.py')

PS. For the sake of completeness, there's a reference to the current implementation at the moment of writing: pydoc.py, and I'm pleased to say that in the vein of xkcd 1987 it uses neither of the implementations mentioned in issue 21436 -- at least, not verbatim.

A simple solution using importlib instead of the imp package (tested for Python 2.7, although it should work for Python 3 too):

import importlib

dirname, basename = os.path.split(pyfilepath) # pyfilepath: '/my/path/mymodule.py'
sys.path.append(dirname) # only directories should be added to PYTHONPATH
module_name = os.path.splitext(basename)[0] # '/my/path/mymodule.py' --> 'mymodule'
module = importlib.import_module(module_name) # name space of defined module (otherwise we would literally look for "module_name")

Now you can directly use the namespace of the imported module, like this:

a = module.myvar
b = module.myfunc(a)

The advantage of this solution is that we don't even need to know the actual name of the module we would like to import, in order to use it in our code. This is useful, e.g. in case the path of the module is a configurable argument.

Import package modules at runtime (Python recipe)

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/223972/

###################
##                #
## classloader.py #
##                #
###################

import sys, types

def _get_mod(modulePath):
    try:
        aMod = sys.modules[modulePath]
        if not isinstance(aMod, types.ModuleType):
            raise KeyError
    except KeyError:
        # The last [''] is very important!
        aMod = __import__(modulePath, globals(), locals(), [''])
        sys.modules[modulePath] = aMod
    return aMod

def _get_func(fullFuncName):
    """Retrieve a function object from a full dotted-package name."""

    # Parse out the path, module, and function
    lastDot = fullFuncName.rfind(u".")
    funcName = fullFuncName[lastDot + 1:]
    modPath = fullFuncName[:lastDot]

    aMod = _get_mod(modPath)
    aFunc = getattr(aMod, funcName)

    # Assert that the function is a *callable* attribute.
    assert callable(aFunc), u"%s is not callable." % fullFuncName

    # Return a reference to the function itself,
    # not the results of the function.
    return aFunc

def _get_class(fullClassName, parentClass=None):
    """Load a module and retrieve a class (NOT an instance).

    If the parentClass is supplied, className must be of parentClass
    or a subclass of parentClass (or None is returned).
    """
    aClass = _get_func(fullClassName)

    # Assert that the class is a subclass of parentClass.
    if parentClass is not None:
        if not issubclass(aClass, parentClass):
            raise TypeError(u"%s is not a subclass of %s" %
                            (fullClassName, parentClass))

    # Return a reference to the class itself, not an instantiated object.
    return aClass


######################
##       Usage      ##
######################

class StorageManager: pass
class StorageManagerMySQL(StorageManager): pass

def storage_object(aFullClassName, allOptions={}):
    aStoreClass = _get_class(aFullClassName, StorageManager)
    return aStoreClass(allOptions)

This will allow imports of compiled (pyd) Python modules in 3.4:

import sys
import importlib.machinery

def load_module(name, filename):
    # If the Loader finds the module name in this list it will use
    # module_name.__file__ instead so we need to delete it here
    if name in sys.modules:
        del sys.modules[name]
    loader = importlib.machinery.ExtensionFileLoader(name, filename)
    module = loader.load_module()
    locals()[name] = module
    globals()[name] = module

load_module('something', r'C:\Path\To\something.pyd')
something.do_something()

A quite simple way: suppose you want import file with relative path ../../MyLibs/pyfunc.py

libPath = '../../MyLibs'
import sys
if not libPath in sys.path: sys.path.append(libPath)
import pyfunc as pf

But if you make it without a guard you can finally get a very long path.

I have written my own global and portable import function, based on importlib module, for:

• Be able to import both modules as submodules and to import the content of a module to a parent module (or into a globals if has no parent module).
• Be able to import modules with a period characters in a file name.
• Be able to import modules with any extension.
• Be able to use a standalone name for a submodule instead of a file name without extension which is by default.
• Be able to define the import order based on previously imported module instead of dependent on sys.path or on a what ever search path storage.

The examples directory structure:

<root>
 |
 +- test.py
 |
 +- testlib.py
 |
 +- /std1
 |   |
 |   +- testlib.std1.py
 |
 +- /std2
 |   |
 |   +- testlib.std2.py
 |
 +- /std3
     |
     +- testlib.std3.py

Inclusion dependency and order:

test.py
  -> testlib.py
    -> testlib.std1.py
      -> testlib.std2.py
    -> testlib.std3.py

Implementation:

Latest changes store: https://sourceforge.net/p/tacklelib/tacklelib/HEAD/tree/trunk/python/tacklelib/tacklelib.py

test.py:

import os, sys, inspect, copy

SOURCE_FILE = os.path.abspath(inspect.getsourcefile(lambda:0)).replace('\\','/')
SOURCE_DIR = os.path.dirname(SOURCE_FILE)

print("test::SOURCE_FILE: ", SOURCE_FILE)

# portable import to the global space
sys.path.append(TACKLELIB_ROOT) # TACKLELIB_ROOT - path to the library directory
import tacklelib as tkl

tkl.tkl_init(tkl)

# cleanup
del tkl # must be instead of `tkl = None`, otherwise the variable would be still persist
sys.path.pop()

tkl_import_module(SOURCE_DIR, 'testlib.py')

print(globals().keys())

testlib.base_test()
testlib.testlib_std1.std1_test()
testlib.testlib_std1.testlib_std2.std2_test()
#testlib.testlib.std3.std3_test()                             # does not reachable directly ...
getattr(globals()['testlib'], 'testlib.std3').std3_test()     # ... but reachable through the `globals` + `getattr`

tkl_import_module(SOURCE_DIR, 'testlib.py', '.')

print(globals().keys())

base_test()
testlib_std1.std1_test()
testlib_std1.testlib_std2.std2_test()
#testlib.std3.std3_test()                                     # does not reachable directly ...
globals()['testlib.std3'].std3_test()                         # ... but reachable through the `globals` + `getattr`

testlib.py:

# optional for 3.4.x and higher
#import os, inspect
#
#SOURCE_FILE = os.path.abspath(inspect.getsourcefile(lambda:0)).replace('\\','/')
#SOURCE_DIR = os.path.dirname(SOURCE_FILE)

print("1 testlib::SOURCE_FILE: ", SOURCE_FILE)

tkl_import_module(SOURCE_DIR + '/std1', 'testlib.std1.py', 'testlib_std1')

# SOURCE_DIR is restored here
print("2 testlib::SOURCE_FILE: ", SOURCE_FILE)

tkl_import_module(SOURCE_DIR + '/std3', 'testlib.std3.py')

print("3 testlib::SOURCE_FILE: ", SOURCE_FILE)

def base_test():
  print('base_test')

testlib.std1.py:

# optional for 3.4.x and higher
#import os, inspect
#
#SOURCE_FILE = os.path.abspath(inspect.getsourcefile(lambda:0)).replace('\\','/')
#SOURCE_DIR = os.path.dirname(SOURCE_FILE)

print("testlib.std1::SOURCE_FILE: ", SOURCE_FILE)

tkl_import_module(SOURCE_DIR + '/../std2', 'testlib.std2.py', 'testlib_std2')

def std1_test():
  print('std1_test')

testlib.std2.py:

# optional for 3.4.x and higher
#import os, inspect
#
#SOURCE_FILE = os.path.abspath(inspect.getsourcefile(lambda:0)).replace('\\','/')
#SOURCE_DIR = os.path.dirname(SOURCE_FILE)

print("testlib.std2::SOURCE_FILE: ", SOURCE_FILE)

def std2_test():
  print('std2_test')

testlib.std3.py:

# optional for 3.4.x and higher
#import os, inspect
#
#SOURCE_FILE = os.path.abspath(inspect.getsourcefile(lambda:0)).replace('\\','/')
#SOURCE_DIR = os.path.dirname(SOURCE_FILE)

print("testlib.std3::SOURCE_FILE: ", SOURCE_FILE)

def std3_test():
  print('std3_test')

Output (3.7.4):

test::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/test.py
import : <root>/test01/testlib.py as testlib -> []
1 testlib::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/testlib.py
import : <root>/test01/std1/testlib.std1.py as testlib_std1 -> ['testlib']
import : <root>/test01/std1/../std2/testlib.std2.py as testlib_std2 -> ['testlib', 'testlib_std1']
testlib.std2::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/std1/../std2/testlib.std2.py
2 testlib::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/testlib.py
import : <root>/test01/std3/testlib.std3.py as testlib.std3 -> ['testlib']
testlib.std3::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/std3/testlib.std3.py
3 testlib::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/testlib.py
dict_keys(['__name__', '__doc__', '__package__', '__loader__', '__spec__', '__annotations__', '__builtins__', '__file__', '__cached__', 'os', 'sys', 'inspect', 'copy', 'SOURCE_FILE', 'SOURCE_DIR', 'TackleGlobalImportModuleState', 'tkl_membercopy', 'tkl_merge_module', 'tkl_get_parent_imported_module_state', 'tkl_declare_global', 'tkl_import_module', 'TackleSourceModuleState', 'tkl_source_module', 'TackleLocalImportModuleState', 'testlib'])
base_test
std1_test
std2_test
std3_test
import : <root>/test01/testlib.py as . -> []
1 testlib::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/testlib.py
import : <root>/test01/std1/testlib.std1.py as testlib_std1 -> ['testlib']
import : <root>/test01/std1/../std2/testlib.std2.py as testlib_std2 -> ['testlib', 'testlib_std1']
testlib.std2::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/std1/../std2/testlib.std2.py
2 testlib::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/testlib.py
import : <root>/test01/std3/testlib.std3.py as testlib.std3 -> ['testlib']
testlib.std3::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/std3/testlib.std3.py
3 testlib::SOURCE_FILE:  <root>/test01/testlib.py
dict_keys(['__name__', '__doc__', '__package__', '__loader__', '__spec__', '__annotations__', '__builtins__', '__file__', '__cached__', 'os', 'sys', 'inspect', 'copy', 'SOURCE_FILE', 'SOURCE_DIR', 'TackleGlobalImportModuleState', 'tkl_membercopy', 'tkl_merge_module', 'tkl_get_parent_imported_module_state', 'tkl_declare_global', 'tkl_import_module', 'TackleSourceModuleState', 'tkl_source_module', 'TackleLocalImportModuleState', 'testlib', 'testlib_std1', 'testlib.std3', 'base_test'])
base_test
std1_test
std2_test
std3_test

Tested in Python 3.7.4, 3.2.5, 2.7.16

Pros:

• Can import both module as a submodule and can import content of a module to a parent module (or into a globals if has no parent module).
• Can import modules with periods in a file name.
• Can import any extension module from any extension module.
• Can use a standalone name for a submodule instead of a file name without extension which is by default (for example, testlib.std.py as testlib, testlib.blabla.py as testlib_blabla and so on).
• Does not depend on a sys.path or on a what ever search path storage.
• Does not require to save/restore global variables like SOURCE_FILE and SOURCE_DIR between calls to tkl_import_module.
• [for 3.4.x and higher] Can mix the module namespaces in nested tkl_import_module calls (ex: named->local->named or local->named->local and so on).
• [for 3.4.x and higher] Can auto export global variables/functions/classes from where being declared to all children modules imported through the tkl_import_module (through the tkl_declare_global function).

Cons:

• Does not support complete import:
  • Ignores enumerations and subclasses.
  • Ignores builtins because each what type has to be copied exclusively.
  • Ignore not trivially copiable classes.
  • Avoids copying builtin modules including all packaged modules.
• [for 3.3.x and lower] Require to declare tkl_import_module in all modules which calls to tkl_import_module (code duplication)

Update 1,2 (for 3.4.x and higher only):

In Python 3.4 and higher you can bypass the requirement to declare tkl_import_module in each module by declare tkl_import_module in a top level module and the function would inject itself to all children modules in a single call (it's a kind of self deploy import).

Update 3:

Added function tkl_source_module as analog to bash source with support execution guard upon import (implemented through the module merge instead of import).

Update 4:

Added function tkl_declare_global to auto export a module global variable to all children modules where a module global variable is not visible because is not a part of a child module.

Update 5:

All functions has moved into the tacklelib library, see the link above.

These are my two utility functions using only pathlib. It infers the module name from the path.

By default, it recursively loads all Python files from folders and replaces init.py by the parent folder name. But you can also give a Path and/or a glob to select some specific files.

from pathlib import Path
from importlib.util import spec_from_file_location, module_from_spec
from typing import Optional


def get_module_from_path(path: Path, relative_to: Optional[Path] = None):
    if not relative_to:
        relative_to = Path.cwd()

    abs_path = path.absolute()
    relative_path = abs_path.relative_to(relative_to.absolute())
    if relative_path.name == "__init__.py":
        relative_path = relative_path.parent
    module_name = ".".join(relative_path.with_suffix("").parts)
    mod = module_from_spec(spec_from_file_location(module_name, path))
    return mod


def get_modules_from_folder(folder: Optional[Path] = None, glob_str: str = "*/**/*.py"):
    if not folder:
        folder = Path(".")

    mod_list = []
    for file_path in sorted(folder.glob(glob_str)):
        mod_list.append(get_module_from_path(file_path))

    return mod_list

This answer is a supplement to Sebastian Rittau's answer responding to the comment: "but what if you don't have the module name?" This is a quick and dirty way of getting the likely Python module name given a filename -- it just goes up the tree until it finds a directory without an __init__.py file and then turns it back into a filename. For Python 3.4+ (uses pathlib), which makes sense since Python 2 people can use "imp" or other ways of doing relative imports:

import pathlib

def likely_python_module(filename):
    '''
    Given a filename or Path, return the "likely" python module name.  That is, iterate
    the parent directories until it doesn't contain an __init__.py file.

    :rtype: str
    '''
    p = pathlib.Path(filename).resolve()
    paths = []
    if p.name != '__init__.py':
        paths.append(p.stem)
    while True:
        p = p.parent
        if not p:
            break
        if not p.is_dir():
            break

        inits = [f for f in p.iterdir() if f.name == '__init__.py']
        if not inits:
            break

        paths.append(p.stem)

    return '.'.join(reversed(paths))

There are certainly possibilities for improvement, and the optional __init__.py files might necessitate other changes, but if you have __init__.py in general, this does the trick.

Here's a way of loading files sort of like C, etc.

from importlib.machinery import SourceFileLoader
import os

def LOAD(MODULE_PATH):
    if (MODULE_PATH[0] == "/"):
        FULL_PATH = MODULE_PATH;
    else:
        DIR_PATH = os.path.dirname (os.path.realpath (__file__))
        FULL_PATH = os.path.normpath (DIR_PATH + "/" + MODULE_PATH)

    return SourceFileLoader (FULL_PATH, FULL_PATH).load_module ()

Implementations where:

Y = LOAD("../Z.py")
A = LOAD("./A.py")
D = LOAD("./C/D.py")
A_ = LOAD("/IMPORTS/A.py")

Y.DEF();
A.DEF();
D.DEF();
A_.DEF();

Where each of the files looks like this:

def DEF():
    print("A");

You can use importfile from pydoc

from pydoc import importfile
module = importfile('/full/path/to/module/module.py')
name = module.myclass() # myclass is a class inside your python file

I find this is a simple answer:

module = dict()

code = """
import json

def testhi() :
    return json.dumps({"key" : "value"}, indent = 4 )
"""

exec(code, module)
x = module['testhi']()
print(x)

Something special is to import a module with absolute path with Exec(): (exec takes a code string or code object. While eval takes an expression.)

PYMODULE = 'C:\maXbox\mX47464\maxbox4\examples\histogram15.py';
Execstring(LoadStringJ(PYMODULE));

And then get values or object with eval():

println('get module data: '+evalStr('pyplot.hist(x)'));

Load a module with exec is like an import with wildcard namespace:

Execstring('sys.path.append(r'+'"'+PYMODULEPATH+'")');
Execstring('from histogram import *');