Issue with import path in Python 3

Question

I'm having an issue with the import statement in Python 3. I'm following a book (Python 3 Object Oriented) and am having the following structure:

parent_directory/
       main.py
       ecommerce/
             __init__.py
             database.py
             products.py
             payments/
                    __init__.py
                    paypal.py
                    authorizenet.py

In paypal.py, I'm trying to use the Database class from database.py. So I tried this:

from ecommerce.database import Database

I get this error:

ImportError: No module named 'ecommerce'

so I try with both of these import statements:

from .ecommerce.database import Database

from ..ecommerce.database import Database

and I get this error:

SystemError: Parent module '' not loaded, cannot perform relative import

What am I doing wrong or missing?

Thank you for your time!

Answer 1

Add your parent_directoryto Python's search path. For example so:

import sys
sys.path.append('/full/path/to/parent_directory')

Alternatively, you can add parent_directory to the environmental variable PYTHONPATH.