Question

Basically there is a file called 8puzzle.py and I want to import the file into another file (in the same folder and I cannot change the file name as the file is provided). Is there anyway to do this in Python? I tried usual way from 8puzzle import *, it gives me an error.

Error is:

>>> import 8puzzle
  File "<input>", line 1
    import 8puzzle
           ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> 

Answer 1

You could do

puzzle = __import__('8puzzle')

Very interesting problem. I’ll remember not to name anything with a number.

If you’d like to import * — you should check out this question and answer.

12 years later…

See answer below (use importlib.import_module from Python 3.1) for interoperability and understandability.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/importlib.html#importlib.import_module

This provides an implementation of import which is portable to any
Python interpreter. This also provides an implementation which is
easier to comprehend than one implemented in a programming language
other than Python.

….

The import_module() function acts as a simplifying wrapper around
importlib.__import__(). This means all semantics of the function are
derived from importlib.__import__(). The most important difference
between these two functions is that import_module() returns the
specified package or module (e.g. pkg.mod), while __import__() returns
the top-level package or module (e.g. pkg).