Where does python look if your sys.path uses relative directory?

Question

I have a project like:

project/
    foo/
       other.py
    bar/
       baz.py

If I code something like:

import sys
sys.path.insert(0, '../foo')

from foo import other

It doesn't work. But if I move foo into the bar directory it works. I realize this is bad code style, but how is this relative path searched and where does the documentation define it?

Answer 1

from foo import other will append foo to each of the directories in sys.path. So it's looking for ../foo/foo/other.py, but the actual path is just ../foo/other.py.

You should just insert .. into sys.path, then it will look for ../foo/other.py. Or if you only want to include that directory in the path, just use import other, without from foo.