Suggestion for loading other Python files in a game

[Timendus]

Issue

When writing a game that consists of multiple MicroPython files, import doesn't work as I would expect.

If I have this directory tree:

Games/
  MyGame/
    MyGame.py
    mylib.py

And this is MyGame.py, I would expect this to Just Work™️:

import mylib

Instead, this gives an error that mylib can't be found. This is because the path doesn't get set to include the game's directory. To fix this, each individual game has to do something like this:

# To find files in our directory before anywhere else:
import sys
sys.path.insert(0, '/Games/MyGame')

# Or, to find files in our directory if we can't find it anywhere else:
import sys
sys.path.append('/Games/MyGame')

# and only then...:

import mylib

So far I have not been able to find a more elegant way to load additional files.

Suggestion for a fix

I haven't actually tried this, but I suggest including the game's path before running it from the Thumby "firmware". See comments in code below:

def launchGame():
    if(selpos>=0):
        gamePath=files[selpos]                # <-- Save game name instead of full path
        saveConfigSetting("lastgame", gamePath)
    import machine
    #Address of watchdog timer scratch register
    WATCHDOG_BASE=0x40058000
    SCRATCH0_ADDR=WATCHDOG_BASE+0x0C
    machine.mem32[SCRATCH0_ADDR]=1
    machine.soft_reset()

if(mem32[SCRATCH0_ADDR]==1):
    mem32[SCRATCH0_ADDR]=0
    import sys
    gamePath=''
    conf = open("thumby.cfg", "r").read().split(',')
    for k in range(len(conf)):
        if(conf[k] == "lastgame"):
            gamePath = conf[k+1]
    freq(125000000)
    try:
        sys.path.insert(0, "/Games/"+gamePath).            # <-- Insert game path as the first entry in the path array
        __import__("/Games/"+gamePath+"/"+gamePath+".py")  # <-- Construct the full game path here
    except ImportError:
        print("Thumby error: Couldn't load "+gamePath)

[DarkGizmo]

That's a great idea, myself I do it per project, since I also like to use multiple files