Importing issues

[MartinHeroux]

Hi bob,

I am having trouble finding a solution to my problem.

I have modified my __init__.py in the main package folder.

The reason I want to do this is to limit the user interface when using the package. Before this change, importing spike2py meant that spike2py was full of functions that I did not want to user to necessarily have access to (e.g. spike2py.mixin).

The changed __init__.py

from channels import Channel_Details, Event, Keyboard, Waveform, Wavemark
from trial import Trial_Info, Trial

With the new version of the __init__.py file, the user is not distracted by lots of functions and classes that are not meant for the end user. See this screenshot of what it looks like:

But doing this means that I can't run my tests. I guess this is because I previously had all the modules imported into to __init__.py spike2py file. I tried a few hacks that I found on stack overflow but none of them worked.

Have you ever come across this? Do you know how to fix it so that I can run the tests but not have the user see/access all the methods and classes?

[bbelderbos]

If you want to limit imports what first comes to mind is using __all__: https://twitter.com/pybites/status/1261659830495870984

Where (which branch) is the code so far so I can debug?

Thanks Bob

[MartinHeroux]

I have pushed the interface branch to github; you should not be able to see it.

I will look into __all__ and get back to you. Thanks!

---

I don't think all will do it because it will limit things for the user as well as the test...at least that is what I think. Will try over the weekend.

[bbelderbos]

Debugging, inspiring to look at how request does this: https://github.com/psf/requests/blob/master/requests/__init__.py

[bbelderbos]

This is pretty sweet: the init imports make that I can just import the classes directly in conftest.py - I will open a PR later ...

[bbelderbos]

Check it out: https://github.com/MartinHeroux/spike2py/pull/37

[MartinHeroux]

The issue with the above is the end user will also have access to all the classes and namped tuples.

The only thing the end user really needs is Trial_Info and Trial from trial.py. The stuff in signal_processing.py, plot.py and channels.py are there to keep related code together. The end user will never need to call the other stuff; for example channel from the call from .plot import channel.

Maybe I am asking for too much. But I found a few examples of __init__.py files similar to mine. I just don't know if/how they get their tests to run.

---

If you only include the line from .trial import Trial_Info, Trial in the __init__.py file, then the interface is what I want, but most of the tests won't run.

---

I went looking at Brian Okken's Pytest book and the main tasks package that he used as the example throughout the book has the following code in the __init__.py file:

from .api import (  # noqa: F401
    Task,
    TasksException,
    add,
    get,
    list_tasks,
    count,
    update,
    delete,
    delete_all,
    unique_id,
    start_tasks_db,
    stop_tasks_db
)

This means that when the user does import tasks, they will be able to type tasks. and the hit tab and have those (and only those) classes and functions available.

But this only means others put code like what I had in mind in the __init__.py. It does not help me figure out how to get pytest to run test on functions and classes that are not imported in __init__py.

---

Let me know if you find something that deals with this specifically.

I will continue looking, but I will also move on to other stuff because this one seems a bit too hard for me to figure out at the moment.

[bbelderbos]

Where do you have the latest __init__.py and do you have it as you want it at this point?

Then I can look at the test code from there ...

Cheers Bob