Question

I would like to be able to write:

try:
    import foo
except ImportError:
    install_the_module("foo")

What is the recommended/idiomatic way to handle this scenario?

I’ve seen a lot of scripts simply print an error or warning notifying the user about the missing module and (sometimes) providing instructions on how to install. However, if I know the module is available on PyPI, then I could surely take this a step further an initiate the installation process. No?

Answer 1

Installation issues are not subject of the source code!

You define your dependencies properly inside the setup.py of your package
using the install_requires configuration.

That’s the way to go…installing something as a result of an ImportError
is kind of weird and scary. Don’t do it.