Local package installed using pip can't be imported although it is shown in pip list

Question

I have problems importing two local (self-written) packages from my file system that I previously installed using pip. I'm using a virtualenv, which I also verified to be activated, i.e. python and pip point to the virtualenv. The two different packages are organized in a single repo as follows:

├── .venv
│ �� └── ...
├── folder_a
│   ├── package_a
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── a.py
│   │   └── subpackage_same_name
│   │       └── ...
│   ├── pyproject.toml
│   ├── requirements.txt
│   └── setup.cfg
├── folder_b
│   ├── package_b
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── subpackage_b_exclusive
│   │   │   └── ...
│   │   ├── b.py
│   │   └── subpackage_same_name
│   │       └── ...
│   ├── pyproject.toml
│   ├── requirements.txt
│   ├── setup.cfg
│   └── tests
│       └── ...

I install both packages from the root of the above tree (with activated virtualenv) using the following commands:

pip install ./folder_a and pip install ./folder_b.

The installation is successful and the packages are shown in pip list. However, when I try to import package_a in a.py I get a ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'package_a'.

I can't figure out the problem here, is it the location of the virtualenv (notice the .venv in the tree) relative to the package definitions? Am I overseeing something? Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

The sys.path variable tells you where Python looks for imports. Check it before the import statement is executed, and you'll see if your module is inside one of the shown folders, or if you need additional dot-separated path elements before your module name.