Question

I cant figure out how to add my simple function to my main program file. why not ?

when i do this:

import print_text 

echothis("this is text")
exit()

cant understand why people think this is such a bad question.

this doesnt work either:

print_text.echothis("this is text")

same thing happens if i type any of the answers below.
including:

from print_text import echothis

I just get this error:

from: can't read /var/mail/print_text
./blah3.py: line 3: syntax error near unexpected token `"this is text"'
./blah3.py: line 3: `print_text.echothis("this is text")'

or a variant without the /var/mail line…

*this file is named print_text.py*

#!/usr/bin/env python

import time
import random
import string
import threading
import sys

def echothis(txt):
    woo=txt
    stdout.write(woo)

Answer 1

EDIT: You’re actually not having a python issue but a bash one. You’re running your python script as if it were bash (hence the ‘from: can’t read from’), did you put #!/usr/bin/env python at the beginning of the file you’re running (not print_text.py, the other one)? You could alternatively call it that way: python myfile.py and it should work.

When you import a module, it is namespaced, so if you want to use anything that is from that module, you need to call it using the proper namespace. Here, you would call you echothis function using print_text.echothis.

Alternatively, if you want to include echothis in your main namespace, you can use the from print_text import echothis syntax.