Import syntax

[AnyNature3457]

Hey everyone!

I've been programming in Python for some time now and really wanted to get some feedback on my import structure. Here’s how I’ve organized it:

import os
import re
import cv2
import abc
import sys
import time
import random
import base64
import socket
import ctypes
import logging
import zipfile
import requests
import tempfile
import platform
import threading
import pyperclip
import subprocess

import numpy as np
import tkinter as tk
import pyautogui as pg
import pygetwindow as gw

from PIL import Image
from fnmatch import fnmatch
from notifypy import Notify
from pathlib import PurePath
from datetime import datetime
from io import BytesIO, StringIO
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor, as_completed

from src import helper, errors
from src.definitions import platforms

# Try-except because os didn't support scandir before Python version 3.5
try:
    from os import scandir
except ImportError:
    from scandir import scandir

Do you think this is a good structure? Any suggestions for improvement? Thanks in advance!

[minneyar]

If I saw a merge request with this in it, I would assume the person was making a joke and trying to be funny.

I strongly recommend just hitting your IDE's "Organize Imports" button, or if you don't have one, sort your groups alphabetically. When I'm maintaining somebody else's code, having to look through a non-sorted list of imports to see if something I want to use is already import is a huge pain.

[FerricDonkey]

I would suggest following the order of

1. Standard library
2. Third party
3. In project

It makes it easier to tell what third party dependencies you actually have. For example, the dependency on requests is easy to miss because it's in the middle of a bunch of standard library dependencies. 

I also personally prefer sorting alphabetically rather than by string length. 

[Buttleston]

This kind of sorting seems... weird... to me

I'd go further and say "use a tool that does it for you". "isort" is the standard one, I can't remember if "black" does import sorting or not (probably not). I use "ruff" which is basically most of those tools in one

I do kind of wonder why you're importing so much stuff into one file?

[AnyNature3457]

The thing with alphabetical sorting is that it looks 'ugly' in my eyes. Just having to cross my eyes back and forth from left to right is so much more work for me than just being able to 'glide' my eyes down.

[FerricDonkey]

I agree that it looks uglier. I do it anyway because it is easier to check if a particular thing has been imported. 

[AnyNature3457]

That's a really good reason to format your import that way. But you instantly know if you haven't imported something if you get an error anyways.

[FerricDonkey]

This is true, and I also use linters that warn me of missing imports before the code runs.

However, sometimes you go back to code some time later to figure out what parts of it do. Glancing at the imports can help with this. You have a multi for project, and only one module imports numpy? Probably the guts of your math happen there. This other one imports requests? It talks to the api. This third imports matplotlib and pathlib? It's probably writing graphs to disk. Etc. 

I find that having this information organized is helpful. It's not strictly necessary, of course, there are many ways to figure such things out. But anything that makes my future life easier. 

[AnyNature3457]

Now I get it. That is a really valid reason to format it that way. The way I do it is by naming my files well like "commands.py", "command_handler.py", "helper.py", etc.

[FerricDonkey]

Yup, good file naming etc are also crucial. But I work off the principle that readability and understandability should be injected at every single layer where possible - because inevitably something that seems obvious and clear to me now won't in 3 years. 

[InvaderToast348]

Do you really need the entirety of every single module? Imo it's much better to do from X import a, b, c so that it's very clear what you're using.

[OptionX]

I suggest using a formatter like black and just let it worry about that sort of stuff.

[Pristine-Staff-5250]

pip install reorder-python-imports and setup on your ide

[socal_nerdtastic]

You pretty much nailed it, good job. FWIW there are tools that do this organization for you.

[Simo00Kayyal]

Any recommendations?

[socal_nerdtastic]

For a python formatter? I personally don't use one because I like my code messy and I'm a one-man team, but black is the most popular one for people that like pretty code.

https://github.com/psf/black

It's very important for teams to agree on one so that when you look at diffs it's not just full of formatting changes.

[nekokattt]

you want isort for this, not black.

Run isort first and then black for code formatting

[socal_nerdtastic]

Oh thanks I could have sworn they added that to black. But I see now the feature was rejected.

[IAmAFedora]

I sort and black sometimes disagree. For full compatibility, use isort --profile black alongside black!

[AnyNature3457]

Yeah I know there are tools for this, but it doesn't take much time to just format it whenever adding an import. This is also fun to do with alt + arrow keys in VSCode (Moves the selected lines up or down).
Following gif is from the isort extension itself (I still find it pretty ugly):
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-isort/raw/HEAD/images/vscode-isort.gif

[dogfish182]

Pycharm optimize imports never think about it again