Be Pythonic: __init__.py

This is hopefully the first in a series of posts about writing Pythonic code and explaining some common Python idioms.

So the first thing I am going to address in this series of posts is __init__.py.

What is __init__.py used for?

The primary use of __init__.py is to initialize Python packages. The easiest way to demonstrate this is to take a look at the structure of a standard Python module.

As you can see in the structure above the inclusion of the __init__.py file in a directory indicates to the Python interpreter that the directory should be treated like a Python package

What goes in __init__.py?

__init__.py can be an empty file but it is often used to perform setup needed for the package(import things, load things into path, etc).

One common thing to do in your __init__.py is to import selected Classes, functions, etc into the package level so they can be conveniently imported from the package.

In our example above we can say that file.py has the Class File. So without anything in our __init__.py you would import with this syntax:

However you can import File into your __init__.py to make it available at the package level:

Another thing to do is at the package level make subpackages/modules available with the __all__ variable. When the interpeter sees an __all__ variable defined in an __init__.pyit imports the modules listed in the __all__ variable when you do:

__all__ is a list containing the names of modules that you want to be imported with import * so looking at our above example again if we wanted to import the submodules in subpackage the __all__ variable in subpackage/__init__.py would be:

With the __all__ variable populated like that, when you perform

it would import submodule1 and submodule2.

As you can see __init__.py can be very useful besides its primary function of indicating that a directory is a module. If you have any comments or questions, hit up the comments or contact me on twitter.