Importing Modules

PyObject *PyImport_ImportModule(const char *name)

Return value: New reference. Part of the Stable ABI.

This is a wrapper around PyImport_Import() which takes a const char* as an argument instead of a PyObject*.

PyObject *PyImport_ImportModuleNoBlock(const char *name)

Return value: New reference. Part of the Stable ABI.

This function is a deprecated alias of PyImport_ImportModule().

Changed in version 3.3: This function used to fail immediately when the import lock was held by another thread. In Python 3.3 though, the locking scheme switched to per-module locks for most purposes, so this function’s special behaviour isn’t needed anymore.

Deprecated since version 3.13, will be removed in version 3.15: Use PyImport_ImportModule() instead.

PyObject *PyImport_ImportModuleEx(const char *name, PyObject *globals, PyObject *locals, PyObject *fromlist)

Return value: New reference.

Import a module. This is best described by referring to the built-in Python function __import__().

The return value is a new reference to the imported module or top-level package, or NULL with an exception set on failure. Like for __import__(), the return value when a submodule of a package was requested is normally the top-level package, unless a non-empty fromlist was given.

Failing imports remove incomplete module objects, like with PyImport_ImportModule().

PyObject *PyImport_ImportModuleLevelObject(PyObject *name, PyObject *globals, PyObject *locals, PyObject *fromlist, int level)

Return value: New reference. Part of the Stable ABI since version 3.7.

Import a module. This is best described by referring to the built-in Python function __import__(), as the standard __import__() function calls this function directly.

The return value is a new reference to the imported module or top-level package, or NULL with an exception set on failure. Like for __import__(), the return value when a submodule of a package was requested is normally the top-level package, unless a non-empty fromlist was given.

Added in version 3.3.

PyObject *PyImport_ImportModuleLevel(const char *name, PyObject *globals, PyObject *locals, PyObject *fromlist, int level)

Return value: New reference. Part of the Stable ABI.

Similar to PyImport_ImportModuleLevelObject(), but the name is a UTF-8 encoded string instead of a Unicode object.

Changed in version 3.3: Negative values for level are no longer accepted.

PyObject *PyImport_Import(PyObject *name)

Return value: New reference. Part of the Stable ABI.

This is a higher-level interface that calls the current “import hook function” (with an explicit level of 0, meaning absolute import). It invokes the __import__() function from the __builtins__ of the current globals. This means that the import is done using whatever import hooks are installed in the current environment.

This function always uses absolute imports.

PyObject *PyImport_ReloadModule(PyObject *m)

Return value: New reference. Part of the Stable ABI.

Reload a module. Return a new reference to the reloaded module, or NULL with an exception set on failure (the module still exists in this case).

PyObject *PyImport_AddModuleRef(const char *name)

Return value: New reference. Part of the Stable ABI since version 3.13.

Return the module object corresponding to a module name.

The name argument may be of the form package.module. First check the modules dictionary if there’s one there, and if not, create a new one and insert it in the modules dictionary.

Return a strong reference to the module on success. Return NULL with an exception set on failure.

The module name name is decoded from UTF-8.

This function does not load or import the module; if the module wasn’t already loaded, you will get an empty module object. Use PyImport_ImportModule() or one of its variants to import a module. Package structures implied by a dotted name for name are not created if not already present.

Added in version 3.13.

PyObject *PyImport_AddModuleObject(PyObject *name)

Return value: Borrowed reference. Part of the Stable ABI since version 3.7.

Similar to PyImport_AddModuleRef(), but return a borrowed reference and name is a Python str object.

Added in version 3.3.

PyObject *PyImport_AddModule(const char *name)

Return value: Borrowed reference. Part of the Stable ABI.

Similar to PyImport_AddModuleRef(), but return a borrowed reference.

PyObject *PyImport_ExecCodeModule(const char *name, PyObject *co)

Return value: New reference. Part of the Stable ABI.

Given a module name (possibly of the form package.module) and a code object read from a Python bytecode file or obtained from the built-in function compile(), load the module. Return a new reference to the module object, or NULL with an exception set if an error occurred. name is removed from sys.modules in error cases, even if name was already in sys.modules on entry to PyImport_ExecCodeModule(). Leaving incompletely initialized modules in sys.modules is dangerous, as imports of such modules have no way to know that the module object is an unknown (and probably damaged with respect to the module author’s intents) state.

The module’s __spec__ and __loader__ will be set, if not set already, with the appropriate values. The spec’s loader will be set to the module’s __loader__ (if set) and to an instance of SourceFileLoader otherwise.

The module’s __file__ attribute will be set to the code object’s co_filename. If applicable, __cached__ will also be set.

This function will reload the module if it was already imported. See PyImport_ReloadModule() for the intended way to reload a module.

If name points to a dotted name of the form package.module, any package structures not already created will still not be created.

See also PyImport_ExecCodeModuleEx() and PyImport_ExecCodeModuleWithPathnames().

Changed in version 3.12: The setting of