function - How can I use modules in web2py?

Question

I have some functions in func.py that I would like to access from my web2py controller called default.py. I tried to import and use func.py in default.py with "import func" and "calculatesomething = func.calculatesomething", but it doesn't work. The file func.py is also added in the Modules section of my web2py program.

Why it is not working? How can I make it to work? Should the module be in func.py or default/func.py or something else?

Answer 1

Just to add a bit to user570039's answer, local_import is documented here. It includes a reload parameter. According to the documentation:

When you specifyreload=True, it will re-import the module upon each request; otherwise your python process will only import the module once. The default isreload=False.

In development, setting reload=True can be convenient because changes to your module will work immediately without requiring a restart. However, re-importing upon each request will slow down performance, so reload=False is recommended in production.

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UPDATE: Things have changed. local_import has been deprecated. If you have /applications/myapp/modules/mymodule.py, you can import it within myapp by doing:

import mymodule

web2py will check the application's "modules" folder before checking the rest of sys.path.

For more details, see here.