I'm getting a SyntaxError when importing a module, and the error isn't clear nor helps me to solve the import issue.
I have a python script:
Adafruit_BMP085/Adafruit_BMP085_example.py
Also located in this directory is a python file named Adafruit_BMP085 that has a function BMP085.
The first line of Adafruit_BMP085_example.py is:
from Adafruit_BMP085 import BMP085
But this just gives me a syntax error:
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
You need to add the /home/pi/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code path to the module search path in sys.path:
import sys
sys.path.append('/home/pi/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code')
from Adafruit_BMP085 import BMP085
or move the Adafruit_BMP085 package to a directory already in your sys.path.
The directory of the script itself is also part of the sys.path, so you could also run:
$ cd /home/pi/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code
$ cp Adafruit_BMP085/Adafruit_BMP085_example.py .
$ python Adafruit_BMP085_example.py
sys.path fix a syntax error?Sometimes, you can get a SyntaxError when having a very standard import scenario. The error can directly point at the import statement even if the import syntax itself is correct, very confusingly.
What is likely happening is that there is a (very subtle) syntax error in the module being imported. Fixing that error resolves the SyntaxError during import.
This is very confusing because Python can report SyntaxError on the import line, rather than forwarding to the internal module's syntax problem (which, I believe, sometimes it does); even a generic ImportError would be more helpful. It happened to me that I wasted time thinking it was some module/path naming issue, rather than a syntax issue in the module to be imported.
In my case, the problem was a combination of
It happened when using a device with MicroPython, and these were the symptoms:
(1) import mymodule from the REPL prompt didn't show any problem!
(2) running this code from my main module:
try:
import mymodule
except Exception as e:
print(e, '|', e.errno, '|', e.value, '|', e.args)
was giving this result at the 'import' line, without revealing the problematic source:
invalid syntax | invalid syntax | invalid syntax | ('invalid syntax',)
(3) but when I did a direct import from the main module, I found the problem:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "main.py", line 3, in <module>
File "mymodule.py", line 126
so... be careful when wrapping import with try/except
I had the same problem. The problem first occured when upgrading to Jessie on RPI. The cause was probably within the pathing. Added below line to Python program:
sys.path.append('/home/pi/Adafruit-Raspberry-Pi-Python-Code/Adafruit_BMP085')
Now problem solved.
