Python 2.7: Odd importing behavior

Question

Screenshot

I have:

C:/Python27/site-packages

in my Path (as shown in the screenshot.)

I also have the folder pywinauto within C:/Python27/site-packages, so I have

C:/Python27/site-packages/pywinauto 

That folder contains some modules which I use. For some reason I can import pywinauto by typing:

import pywinauto 

but it's contents are not imported unless I explicitly say:

from pywinauto import <module>

I think I have everything setup correctly, is there anything that is being overlooked?

Answer 1

Modules internal to a package are not automatically imported when you import the package. When you import a package, only its __init__.py gets executed. In many cases it contains nothing, but it's common to put there some definitions and other imports.

So, in pywinauto/__init__.py, include this line:

import application

Then, this should work:

import pywinauto
print pywinauto.application

The alternatives are to import like this:

import pywinauto.application

Or like this (as you already suggested):

from pywinauto import application