Distinguishing between Python modules of the same name / installing with different name?

Question

Two separate Python wrappers have been made for the Firebase REST API:

https://github.com/mikexstudios/python-firebase

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-firebase/1.2

Both have their strengths and drawbacks, so now I want to use one for some API actions, and the other for other API actions, in the same program. The problem is, when installed, they are both known as firebase.

Is it possible to pip install one or both with a different name? If not, does the import statement have the intelligence to distinguish, if used correctly?

Answer 1

When importing a module, python searches the paths in sys.path by order and stops at first match. So a simple import firebase will not work.

There is a brittle solution to choose one or the other, but you will not be able to import both.

Anyway, to choose one or the other, you can simply import an internal name of the packages. If we look at the two packages' exposed names, we get:

https://github.com/mikexstudios/python-firebase
 firebase/
  __init__.py
   Firebase
   requests
   urlparse
   os
   json

https://github.com/ozgur/python-firebase
 firebase/
  __init__.py
   atexit
   process_pool
   close_process_pool
   urlparse
   json
   FirebaseTokenGenerator
   http_connection
   process_pool
   JSONEncoder
   ...

So, you can either choose the first one by importing a name only present in it:

from firebase import requests

Or the second, with the same reasoning:

from firebase import atext

But frankly, this is horrible IMO.