How to Import From GitHub in Python

The other day, I came across this interesting experimental package for Python called import_from_github_com. The package uses the new import hooks provided in PEP 302 to basically allow you to import a package from github. What the package actually appears to do is install the package and add it to locals. You need Python 3.2 or greater, git and pip to use this package.

Once it’s installed, you can do the following:

>>> from github_com.zzzeek import sqlalchemy
Collecting git+https://github.com/zzzeek/sqlalchemy
  Cloning https://github.com/zzzeek/sqlalchemy to /tmp/pip-acfv7t06-build
Installing collected packages: SQLAlchemy
  Running setup.py install for SQLAlchemy ... done
Successfully installed SQLAlchemy-1.1.0b1.dev0
>>> locals()
{'__builtins__': <module 'builtins' (built-in)>, '__spec__': None,
 '__package__': None, '__doc__': None, '__name__': '__main__', 
'sqlalchemy': <module 'sqlalchemy' from '/usr/local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/sqlalchemy/__init__.py'>,
 '__loader__': <class '_frozen_importlib.BuiltinImporter'>}

One important note that isn’t mentioned on the package’s github page is that you need to run Python as an administrator or it won’t be able to install its packages. At least, this was true for me on Xubuntu. Anyway I thought this was a neat little package and demonstrates some of neat little import hooks that you can add to Python 3.