How to install and import Python modules at runtime?

You can use pip to install packages at runtime and importlib.import_module(moduleName) to import module by using its name as a string. For example,

import pip
import importlib
def import_with_auto_install(package):
    try:
        return importlib.import_module(package)
    except ImportError:
        pip.main(['install', package])
    return importlib.import_module(package)
# Example
if __name__ == '__main__':
    scrapy = import_with_auto_install('scrapy')
    print(scrapy)

The above script installs the scrapy module and imports it when installation of the module completes.

Rajendra Dharmkar

Published on 21-Dec-2017 12:49:59