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[Contents](https://philipmolloy.com/) May 14, 2013 # Absolute imports in \_\_main\_\_ I began to brush the dust off an old Python project by running the `2to3`, a Python program that can automate code translation from Python 2 to 3. The first suggestion was to replace the import statement in a \_\_main\_\_ file as follows: ``` -from reference.wiktionary import Wiktionary +from .reference.wiktionary import Wiktionary ``` This change was based on a fixer that “detects sibling imports and converts them to relative imports” (see [Python documentation](https://docs.python.org/2/library/2to3.html#2to3fixer-import)). An explanation for this fixer can be found in the [Intra-package References](http://docs.pytho.org/3.3/tutorial/modules.html#intra-package-references) article, which states, “Note that relative imports are based on the name of the current module. Since the name of the main module is always”\_\_main\_\_“, modules intended for use as the main module of a Python application must always use absolute imports.” Absolute imports are explained by [PEP 328](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0328/#rationale-for-absolute-imports), which states, “In Python 2.4 and earlier, if you’re reading a module located inside a package, it is not clear whether import foo refers to a top-level module or to another module inside the package. … foo will always be a module or package reachable from sys.path. This is called an absolute import.” ## See also - [Nightmare with relative imports, how does pep 366 work?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2943847) - [Using modules in main.py](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3411293/using-modules-own-objects-in-main-py) © 2011-2025 Philip Molloy This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

I began to brush the dust off an old Python project by running the `2to3`, a Python program that can automate code translation from Python 2 to 3. The first suggestion was to replace the import statement in a \_\_main\_\_ file as follows: ``` -from reference.wiktionary import Wiktionary +from .reference.wiktionary import Wiktionary ``` This change was based on a fixer that “detects sibling imports and converts them to relative imports” (see [Python documentation](https://docs.python.org/2/library/2to3.html#2to3fixer-import)). An explanation for this fixer can be found in the [Intra-package References](http://docs.pytho.org/3.3/tutorial/modules.html#intra-package-references) article, which states, “Note that relative imports are based on the name of the current module. Since the name of the main module is always”\_\_main\_\_“, modules intended for use as the main module of a Python application must always use absolute imports.” Absolute imports are explained by [PEP 328](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0328/#rationale-for-absolute-imports), which states, “In Python 2.4 and earlier, if you’re reading a module located inside a package, it is not clear whether import foo refers to a top-level module or to another module inside the package. … foo will always be a module or package reachable from sys.path. This is called an absolute import.” ## See also - [Nightmare with relative imports, how does pep 366 work?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2943847) - [Using modules in main.py](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3411293/using-modules-own-objects-in-main-py)