Unloading a module in Python 3.x (not the same as re-loading) [duplicate]

Question

It's clear to me that there was no clean solution in Python 2 to unload a module, and this was a known bug, that was set to be corrected.

The posts:

How do I unload (reload) a Python module? Remove an imported python module

of the year 2009 and 2010 confirm this lack of support for unloading a module.

I wonder if this was solved in Python 3.x. When I do, import os, del os, dir(), the os module is not there (at least not visible, usable). Is it gone?

import os; del os; assert 'os' not in dir() also holds in Python 2. — user395760
– user395760, Commented Feb 7, 2014 at 14:34
@poke. I have already linked to that page. I am asking whether it's still uptodate. The answers there relate to Python 2.x, I asked about Python 3.x. — Quora Feans
– Quora Feans, Commented Feb 7, 2014 at 17:54
@poke It's bad design and you're wrong: completely unloading pure-Python modules is trivial. Completely unloading a top-level module foo, for example, reduces to del sys.modules['foo']; del foo. That's it. Completely unloading submodules is slightly more involved, but not really. Completely unloading C extensions, however, appears to be infeasible. — Cecil Curry
– Cecil Curry, Commented Mar 11, 2016 at 6:59
this is not a duplicate .... importlib has no "unload" function — Erik Aronesty
– Erik Aronesty, Commented Jul 25, 2021 at 3:46

Keith · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-07 14:44:57Z

0

The sys.modules does still hold a reference to the module.

>>> import six
>>> del six
>>> sys.modules["six"]
<module 'six' from '/usr/lib64/python3.3/site-packages/six.py'>

sys.modules still holds a reference. So I don't think you can unload a module in Python 3.3 either.

answered Feb 7, 2014 at 14:44

Keith

43.2k11 gold badges61 silver badges77 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Cecil Curry Over a year ago

You can unload modules, but you didn't even really try. Since six is a top-level pure-Python module, unloading six reduces to (A) del sys.modules['six'] and (B) del six (in either order). That's it. Deleting all references to that module results in that module being garbage collected.

WestCoastProjects Over a year ago

@CecilCurry Why not make that an answer?

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Unloading a module in Python 3.x (not the same as re-loading) [duplicate]

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

2 Comments

Linked

Related