Import py file in another directory in Jupyter notebook

My question is related to this. I am using Python 3.6 in Jupyter Notebook. My project directory is /user/project. In this directory I'm building a number of models and each has its own folder. However, there is a common functions.py file with functions that I want to use across all models. So I want to keep the functions.py file in /user/project but be able to call it from an .ipynb file in /user/project/model1, /user/project/model2, etc... How can I do this?

There is no simple way to import python files in another directory. This is unrelated to the jupyter notebook

Here are 3 solutions to your problem

1. You can add the directory containing the file you want to import to your path and then import the file like this:

import sys  
sys.path.insert(1, '/path/to/application/app/folder')

import file

2. You can create a local module by having an empty __init__.py file in the folder you want to import. There are some weird rules regarding the folder hierarchy that you have to take into consideration.

3. You can create a module for the file you wish to import and install it globally.