ModuleNotFoundError for python flask app. Script works during import OR direct execution but never both

I’ve got a problem with imports I just can’t seem to find the answer to. I am using python 3, and have all the correct libraries installed. My file structure looks something like this:

run.py
.flaskenv
requirements.txt
/app
| - __init__.py
| - bot.py
| - /strategies
    | - __init__.py
    | - strategy1.py

run.py looks something like this:

from flask import Flask
from app.bot import test_func
...

bot.py looks something like this:

import strategies as st

strategy = st.Strat1

...

def test_func():
    pass

/strategies/__init__.py looks like this:

from .strategy1 import Strat1

Where Strat1 in strategy1.py is simply a class.

---

As it stands, when I run bot.py directly, it works perfectly fine.

The problem arises when I start my flask app, I then receive the error:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'strategies'

Okay… So I try changing the imports, I change bot.py to:

from strategies import *

strategy = Strat1

...

Same issue. I try one more time, imports now look like this:

from .strategies import *

strategy = Strat1

...

Works perfectly fine now during ‘flask run’, hooray!…

Except, now, when I run the file directly, I get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "app/bot.py", line 4, in <module>
    from .strategies import *
ImportError: attempted relative import with no known parent package

I am at a loss… I can either run the file directly with success and then importing it doesn’t work. Or I can import it just fine but no longer run it directly.

I have attempted the common fix of

import sys
import os

SCRIPT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(SCRIPT_DIR))

and every variation of that, to no avail.

Any ideas?

Answer

Looks like it was a bit of a combination of everything.

Ultimately, what I ended up doing was this:

In run.py, I included the path adding before any other imports

import sys
import os
SCRIPT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(SCRIPT_DIR))

In bot.py, I changed my import based on the comment from evanstjabadi :

from app import strategies as st

At this point, running/importing the script from flask works correctly.

To get the script working when running directly, I added this at the very top:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    import os
    SCRIPT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
    sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(SCRIPT_DIR))

from app import strategies as st
...

Not sure if it’s the cleanest fix, but it’s now working in both cases!