Question

In Python 2.7 is it possible to take user input and use this to determine which module gets loaded?

I tried something like:

userModule = raw_input("Which module to import? ")
from userModule import *

where there is no preexisting module called userModule…

Currently this returns: ImportError: No module named userModule

Answer 1

Use the importlib module, and a little globals() trickery:

import importlib

userModule = raw_input("Which module to import? ")

mod = importlib.import_module('signal')
names = mod.__all__ if hasattr(mod, '__all__') else dir(mod)
g = globals()
for name in names:
    g[name] = getattr(mod, name)
del g, name, names, mod, importlib

Note how this is not the easiest and most straightforward task, and you may want to rethink the wisdom of doing this.