How to get "name" from module when using "import module as name"

Question

I can't seem to find where the actual name that a module has been bound to is stored. For example:

import re as my_re

print my_re.__name__ # Output is "re," not "my_re"

I would like to be able to get the name that I imported the module as rather than the actual name of the module.

My use case is that I have a function that takes a function object as an argument and needs to be able to determine what name it is bound to. Here is a more thorough example:

import module as my_module

def my_func(in_func):
    print in_func.__bound-name__ # Or something to this effect

my_func(my_module.function1) # Should print "my_module.function1"

When you run print my_re.__name__, you already know the actual name is my_re because that is how you call the command — Agile_Eagle
– Agile_Eagle, Commented Oct 21, 2018 at 4:26
Right, but in my case, I have a function that takes a module as an argument, and I need to determine the name the module was imported as dynamically. I should have been more clear about that in my original question. — SnippedPaws
– SnippedPaws, Commented Oct 21, 2018 at 4:30

Osman Mamun · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-21 04:41:47Z

1

I would pass the module name as string and then use globals() to fetch the module for use within the function. Suppose you pass 'np' to the function, then globals()['np'] will return the function.

In [22]: import numpy as np
In [23]: def demo(A):
    ...:     a = globals()[A]
    ...:     print(a.array([i for i in range(10)]))
    ...:

In [24]: demo('np')
[0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9]

answered Oct 21, 2018 at 4:41

Osman Mamun

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3 Comments

anthony sottile Over a year ago

broken though if you do import numpy as np; a = b = c = np -- OP is most likely asking for something that's not a good idea ;)

Osman Mamun Over a year ago

fair enough. It's not a good idea to use globals() anyway. But that's the only work around I can think of. Or maybe the OP can set the repr (I'm not sure)

SnippedPaws Over a year ago

That's an interesting option and not too far off of something that I had experimented with earlier. It seems like there should be some place where that mapping (between the actual module name and an alias) must be stored... That is what I am really hoping to find.

sanyassh · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-21 20:07:57Z

1

There is no way to do exactly what you want because string my_re is not stored anywhere, it is only a name of a variable. PEP221 which proposed the syntax for import ... as statement explains that the following lines are equal:

import re as my_re

and

import re
my_re = re
del re

answered Apr 21, 2019 at 20:07

sanyassh

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