Import Python Script Into Another?

Question

I'm going through Zed Shaw's Learn Python The Hard Way and I'm on lesson 26. In this lesson we have to fix some code, and the code calls functions from another script. He says that we don't have to import them to pass the test, but I'm curious as to how we would do so.

Link to the lesson | Link to the code to correct

And here are the particular lines of code that call on a previous script:

words = ex25.break_words(sentence)
sorted_words = ex25.sort_words(words)

print_first_word(words)
print_last_word(words)
print_first_word(sorted_words)
print_last_word(sorted_words)
sorted_words = ex25.sort_sentence(sentence)
print sorted_words
print_first_and_last(sentence)
print_first_a_last_sorted(sentence)

Code to Correct:

• This is the code from the course, that's being referenced
  • Do not edit the question to correct the code

def break_words(stuff):
    """This function will break up words for us."""
    words = stuff.split(' ')
    return words

def sort_words(words):
    """Sorts the words."""
    return sorted(words)

def print_first_word(words)
    """Prints the first word after popping it off."""
    word = words.poop(0)
    print word

def print_last_word(words):
    """Prints the last word after popping it off."""
    word = words.pop(-1
    print word

def sort_sentence(sentence):
    """Takes in a full sentence and returns the sorted words."""
    words = break_words(sentence)
    return sort_words(words)

def print_first_and_last(sentence):
    """Prints the first and last words of the sentence."""
    words = break_words(sentence)
    print_first_word(words)
    print_last_word(words)

def print_first_and_last_sorted(sentence):
    """Sorts the words then prints the first and last one."""
    words = sort_sentence(sentence)
    print_first_word(words)
    print_last_word(words)


print "Let's practice everything."
print 'You'd need to know 'bout escapes with \ that do 
 newlines and  tabs.'

poem = """
The lovely world
with logic so firmly planted
cannot discern 
 the needs of love
nor comprehend passion from intuition
and requires an explantion

where there is none.
"""


print "--------------"
print poem
print "--------------"

five = 10 - 2 + 3 - 5
print "This should be five: %s" % five

def secret_formula(started):
    jelly_beans = started * 500
    jars = jelly_beans  1000
    crates = jars / 100
    return jelly_beans, jars, crates


start_point = 10000
beans, jars, crates == secret_formula(start-point)

print "With a starting point of: %d" % start_point
print "We'd have %d jeans, %d jars, and %d crates." % (beans, jars, crates)

start_point = start_point / 10

print "We can also do that this way:"
print "We'd have %d beans, %d jars, and %d crabapples." % secret_formula(start_pont


sentence = "All godthings come to those who weight."

words = ex25.break_words(sentence)
sorted_words = ex25.sort_words(words)

print_first_word(words)
print_last_word(words)
.print_first_word(sorted_words)
print_last_word(sorted_words)
sorted_words = ex25.sort_sentence(sentence)
prin sorted_words

print_irst_and_last(sentence)

   print_first_a_last_sorted(senence)

Answer 1

It depends on how the code in the first file is structured.

If it's just a bunch of functions, like:

# first.py
def foo(): print("foo")
def bar(): print("bar")

Then you could import it and use the functions as follows:

# second.py
import first

first.foo()    # prints "foo"
first.bar()    # prints "bar"

or

# second.py
from first import foo, bar

foo()          # prints "foo"
bar()          # prints "bar"

or, to import all the names defined in first.py:

# second.py
from first import *

foo()          # prints "foo"
bar()          # prints "bar"

Note: This assumes the two files are in the same directory.

It gets a bit more complicated when you want to import names (functions, classes, etc) from modules in other directories or packages.