importlib cannot find module after compling using Pyinstaller

Question

I have a main script that import the module from another script (sub_script.py) using importlib. I also pass the argument to the other script:

import importlib
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(add_help=False)
group = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group(required=True)
group.add_argument('-option1', action = "store_true")

args = parser.parse_known_args()   

if args[0].option1:
    function = importlib.import_module('sub_script')
    function.main(namespace = args[1])

While this code runs fine by itself (using Python main_script.py), it returns the following error message after I complied it with Pyinstaller:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 33, in <module>
ImportError: No module named sub_script
main_script returned -1

I tried to:

1) add a __init__.py under my folder

or 2) move sub_script.py to a sub_folder with __init__.py but either works.

I also tried to complied it under Ubuntu, but got the same message.

However, it complied and ran fine if I just using import:

import sub_script

Any ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

pyinstaller can't automatically package a module that is imported dynamically. If you really need to use importlib to import the module, then you need to tell pyinstaller. You can use the --hidden-import option for this:

--hidden-import MODULENAME, --hiddenimport MODULENAME
    Name an import not visible in the code of the script(s). This option can be used multiple times.

See PyInstaller Docs for more detail