[SOLVED] How to manually create a namesapce package import from a list of paths?

How to manually create a namesapce package import from a list of paths?

According to PEP420, namespace packages have the lowest precedence. For example, import xxx will not create a namespace package xxx if there are any xxx/__init__.pys or xxx.{py,pyc,so,pyd}s in any path in sys.path.

I have a folder /path/xxx that contains some code and I have been using it as a namespace package by using sys.path.insert(0,'/path') and then import xxx. But now I somehow get another regular package also named xxx that shadows the namespace package I want.

My question is, how can I import /path/xxx no matter what other packages may exist? Or better, as namespace package is just a list of paths (which can be retrieved from its __path__ attribute), how can I manually create a namespace package from a given list of paths?

P.S.

I tried searching for ways to do it through importlib but find no results.

I cannot make changes to /path/xxx, like adding an __init__.py to it.

Solution

After some digging, I finally got it to work.

import importlib
import sys

# 1. manually create a namespace package specification
spec = importlib.machinery.ModuleSpec("xxx", None)
spec.submodule_search_locations = ["/path/xxx"]

# 2. import module from the spec
xxx = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)

# 3. add it to global cache
sys.modules["xxx"] = xxx