Hide implementation modules and submodules in pack

Question

I want to package my code to expose only the main functions. My directory is like this:

./
  setup.py
  my_module/
    __init__.py
    public_functions.py
    internal_modules/
      __init__.py
      A.py
      B.py
      other_modules.py/
        __init__.py
        C.py

In public_functions I do import some operations from internal_modules.A but NOT from internal_modules.B, and both A.py and B.py uses some functions from C.py.

My setup.py is as follows:

from setuptools import setup

setup(name='my_module',
      version='0.1',
      description='my_awesome_module',
      author='Me',
      author_email='[e-mail]',
      license='MIT',
      packages=['my_module'],
      zip_safe=False)

I want to install it with pip, but I want not to let any of my internal_modules visible from my package once it is installed.

I could install it properly but when I do

from my_module import public_module

it throws ImportError: no module named internal_modules.A in public_module.py's first line.

I know I can fix it if I add my_module.internal_modules to my setup.py declaration as another package, but this will let my internal_modules public with A.py and B.py visible from installed package.

I found a similar question here but it's not working for me

Answer 1

You can hide the internals of the module from an import by underscoring the module name:

_yourmodulenamegoeshere.

E: You can also define __all__ in the package's __init__ - only the module names from __all__ will be imported via import *.