Recursive version of 'reload'

When I'm developing Python code, I usually test it in an ad-hoc way in the interpreter. I'll import some_module, test it, find a bug, fix the bug and save, and then use the built-in reload function to reload(some_module) and test again.

However, suppose that in some_module I have import some_other_module, and while testing some_module I discover a bug in some_other_module and fix it. Now calling reload(some_module) won't recursively re-import some_other_module. I have to either manually reimport the dependency (by doing something like reload(some_module.some_other_module), or import some_other_module; reload(some_other_module), or, if I've changed a whole bunch of dependencies and lost track of what I need to reload, I need to restart the entire interpreter.

What'd be more convenient is if there were some recursive_reload function, and I could just do recursive_reload(some_module) and have Python not only reload some_module, but also recursively reload every module that some_module imports (and every module that each of those modules imports, and so on) so that I could be sure that I wasn't using an old version of any of the other modules upon which some_module depends.

I don't think there's anything built in to Python that behaves like the recursive_reload function I describe here, but is there an easy way to hack such a thing together?

I've run up against the same issue, and you inspired me to actually solve the problem.

from types import ModuleType

try:
    from importlib import reload  # Python 3.4+
except ImportError:
    # Needed for Python 3.0-3.3; harmless in Python 2.7 where imp.reload is just an
    # alias for the builtin reload.
    from imp import reload

def rreload(module):
    """Recursively reload modules."""
    reload(module)
    for attribute_name in dir(module):
        attribute = getattr(module, attribute_name)
        if type(attribute) is ModuleType:
            rreload(attribute)

Or, if you are using IPython, just use dreload or pass --deep-reload on startup.

Wouldn't it be simpler to actually write some test cases and run them every time you are done with modifying your module?

What you are doing is cool (you are in essence using TDD (test driven development) but you are doing it wrong.

Consider that with written unit tests(using the default python unittest module, or better yet nose) you get to have tests that are reusable, stable and help you detect inconsitencies in your code much much faster and better than with testing your module in the interactive environment.

I've run against the same issue and I've built up on @Mattew and @osa answer.

from types import ModuleType
import os, sys
def rreload(module, paths=None, mdict=None):
    """Recursively reload modules."""
    if paths is None:
        paths = ['']
    if mdict is None:
        mdict = {}
    if module not in mdict:
        # modules reloaded from this module
        mdict[module] = [] 
    reload(module)
    for attribute_name in dir(module):
        attribute = getattr(module, attribute_name)
        if type(attribute) is ModuleType:
            if attribute not in mdict[module]:
                if attribute.__name__ not in sys.builtin_module_names:
                    if os.path.dirname(attribute.__file__) in paths:
                        mdict[module].append(attribute)
                        rreload(attribute, paths, mdict)
    reload(module)
    #return mdict

There are three differences:

1. In the general case, reload(module) has to be called at the end of the function as well, as @osa pointed out.
2. With circular import dependencies the code posted earlier would loop forever so I've added a dictionary of lists to keep track of the set of modules loaded by other modules. While circular dependencies are not cool, Python allows them, so this reload function deals with them as well.
3. I've added a list of paths (default is ['']) from which the reloading is allowed. Some modules don't like been reloaded the normal way, (as shown here).

The code worked great for dependency modules imported just as import another_module, but it failed when the module imported functions with from another_module import some_func.

I expanded on @redsk's answer to try and be smart about these functions. I've also added a blacklist because unfortunately typing and importlib don't appear in sys.builtin_module_names (maybe there are more). Also I wanted to prevent reloading of some dependencies I knew about.

I also track the reloaded module names and return them.

Tested on Python 3.7.4 Windows:

def rreload(module, paths=None, mdict=None, base_module=None, blacklist=None, reloaded_modules=None):
    """Recursively reload modules."""
    if paths is None:
        paths = [""]
    if mdict is None:
        mdict = {}
    if module not in mdict:
        # modules reloaded from this module
        mdict[module] = []
    if base_module is None:
        base_module = module
    if blacklist is None:
        blacklist = ["importlib", "typing"]
    if reloaded_modules is None:
        reloaded_modules = []
    reload(module)
    reloaded_modules.append(module.__name__)
    for attribute_name in dir(module):
        attribute = getattr(module, attribute_name)
        if type(attribute) is ModuleType and attribute.__name__ not in blacklist:
            if attribute not in mdict[module]:
                if attribute.__name__ not in sys.builtin_module_names:
                    if os.path.dirname(attribute.__file__) in paths:
                        mdict[module].append(attribute)
                        reloaded_modules = rreload(attribute, paths, mdict, base_module, blacklist, reloaded_modules)
        elif callable(attribute) and attribute.__module__ not in blacklist:
            if attribute.__module__ not in sys.builtin_module_names and f"_{attribute.__module__}" not in sys.builtin_module_names:
                if sys.modules[attribute.__module__] != base_module:
                    if sys.modules[attribute.__module__] not in mdict:
                        mdict[sys.modules[attribute.__module__]] = [attribute]
                        reloaded_modules = rreload(sys.modules[attribute.__module__], paths, mdict, base_module, blacklist, reloaded_modules)
    reload(module)
    return reloaded_modules

Some notes:

1. I don't know why some builtin_module_names are prefixed with an underscore (for example collections is listed as _collections, so I have to do the double string check.
2. callable() returns True for classes, I guess that's expected but that was one of the reasons I had to blacklist extra modules.

At least now I am able to deep reload a module at runtime and from my tests I was able to go multiple levels deep with from foo import bar and see the result at each call to rreload()

(Apologies for the long and ugly depth, but the black formatted version doesn't look so readable on SO)