Python - Module Not Found

I am a beginner with Python. Before I start, here's my Python folder structure

-project
----src
------model
--------order.py
------hello-world.py

Under src I have a folder named model which has a Python file called order.py which contents follow:

class SellOrder(object):
    def __init__(self,genericName,brandName):
        self.genericName = genericName
        self.brandName = brandName

Next my hello-world.py is inside the src folder, one level above order.py:

import model.order.SellOrder

order = SellOrder("Test","Test")

print order.brandName

Whenever I run python hello-world.py it results in the error

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "hello-world.py", line 1, in <module>
    import model.order.SellOrder
ImportError: No module named model.order.SellOrder

Is there anything I missed?


All modules in Python have to have a certain directory structure. You can find details here.

Create an empty file called __init__.py under the model directory, such that your directory structure would look something like that:

.
└── project
    └── src
        ├── hello-world.py
        └── model
            ├── __init__.py
            └── order.py

Also in your hello-world.py file change the import statement to the following:

from model.order import SellOrder

That should fix it

P.S.: If you are placing your model directory in some other location (not in the same directory branch), you will have to modify the python path using sys.path.


If it's your root module just add it to PYTHONPATH (PyCharm usually does that)

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:<root module path>

for Docker:

ENV PYTHONPATH="${PYTHONPATH}:<root module path in container>"

you need a file named __init__.py (two underscores on each side) in every folder in the hierarchy, so one in src/ and one in model/. This is what python looks for to know that it should access a particular folder. The files are meant to contain initialization instructions but even if you create them empty this will solve it.


You need to make sure the module is installed for all versions of python

You can check to see if a module is installed for python by running:

pip uninstall moduleName

If it is installed, it will ask you if you want to delete it or not. My issue was that it was installed for python, but not for python3. To check to see if a module is installed for python3, run:

python3 -m pip uninstall moduleName

After doing this, if you find that a module is not installed for one or both versions, use these two commands to install the module.

  • pip install moduleName
  • python3 -m pip install moduleName

After trying to add the path using:

pip show

on command prompt and using

sys.path.insert(0, "/home/myname/pythonfiles")

and didn't work. Also got SSL error when trying to install the module again using conda this time instead of pip.

I simply copied the module that wasn't found from the path "Mine was in

C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.7_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python37\site-packages 

so I copied it to 'C:\Users\user\Anaconda3\Lib\site-packages'