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Python: How to import a file

I'm using Python 3.95, and have two files:
shapes.py, which defines class Circle, class Square, and class Triangle
textures.py, which defines class Smooth and class Rough
I'd like to be able to do something like:
from .shapes import *
but I get error ImportError: attempted relative import with no known parent package.
All files are stored in the same folder, and I'm trying to execute Python from that folder, on Python files stored in that folder.
There are numerous posts on SO describing this error, and I've tried their solutions, but to no avail. It seems like some of this depends on Python 2 vs 3, some depends on which folder you're executing from, some depends on packages and modules (which I do not entirely understand).
Some things I've tried which have not worked:
Creating an __init__.py file
Using from shapes import * instead of from .shapes import *
Using from .shapes import Circle
Adding these lines:
import sys
import os
SCRIPT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__))
sys.path.append(os.path.dirname(SCRIPT_DIR))
This is likely a basic mistake: I'm not trying to build a module or package for distribution, I simply want to put different classes into different files, instead of all my classes in one giant file. How can I do so?

The current directory is only prepended to sys.path automatically if the script is the python file (not if the script is the first argument to python like python app.py).
I think that you can either:
add #! /usr/bin/env python at the start of the main file and make it executable with chmod +x main.py
append the right directoy to sys.path, as it seems to me that you are trying to append the parent dir. SCRIPT_DIR in your last attempt is already the current directory and you don't need to call dirname on it again.

There's no need for a relative import if your main script needs to use a module in the same folder. If you have a main.py and a shapes.py (containing for example a function fun1()), just use any of these:
import shapes
shapes.fun1()
from shapes import fun1
fun1()
from shapes import *
fun1()
Note that the latter is not preferable, since it's not at all clear what you're importing and if shapes.py is later changed to include something that shadows something from an earlier import, it may break your code in surprising ways. Surprise is bad.
If you're writing a package called shapes, create a folder called shapes, put an __init__.py in it, and a Python file which could be called shapes.py or anything you want, as you'll be importing what's relevant from the __init__.py.
Then shapes/__init__.py could be something like:
from .shapes import *
Here, using the * makes a bit more sense, although I'd still favour from .shapes import fun1. The . is not needed, but here it makes sense, because it is relative to another file that's also in the package.
And shapes/shapes.py might be something like:
from .other_mod import fun2
def fun1():
fun2()
Here, the . makes sense if shapes.py and other_mod.py are always going to be sitting next to each other in the package, but perhaps move around within the internal structure. Or perhaps you want to use the explicit . to avoid conflicts with other names.
If other_mod.py is something like:
def fun2():
print('hello')
You could write a main.py in the same folder where the shapes folder sits and the code with shapes imports above would work.

Can you try create new folder and add [shapes.py,textures.py,init.py] files into shapes folder
backend/
|
|------folder_shapes/shapes.py
|------folder_shapes/textures.py
|------folder_shapes/__init__.py
|------your_script.py
|
Then try import from your_script.py

Python - Loading an arbitrary settings file (JSON/YAML) and making it available to submodules

I have a large codebase where all settings & constants are stored inside a settings.py file, that gets imported in various places. I want to be able to import an arbitrary .yml file instead, with the filename given at run-time to the executable main.py.
It's easy to change settings to load a .yml file; but of course I can't pass it an arbitrary filename from main, such that it will remember wherever else that settings gets imported.
I tried to think of a few solutions:
Modify main so that the first thing it does is copy the arbitrary yaml file, into the default place the yaml file will be loaded from (ugly)
Import the settings in main.py, and change references from import settings to import main (circular imports)
Use os to set an environment variable SETTINGS_FILE=some_file.yml, that later gets read by the settings submodule (somewhat ugly...)
Refactor the entire codebase to pass around a settings class instead of a module (a lot of work)
I feel like I'm generally thinking of this all in a stupid way, and that there must be a better way (although I couldn't find anything by search)... what am I missing?
EDIT:
I had no idea but apparently this works...
$ cat settings.py
setting = 1
$ cat other_module.py
import settings
print(settings.setting)
$ cat main.py
import settings
print(settings.setting)
settings.setting = 2
import other_module
$ python main.py
1
2

Why cannot import sub module?

My project structure like this:
/project
main.py
/a_module
__init__.py
/sub_module
__init__.py
some_file.py
main.py
from a_module import main_api
a_module/__init__.py
from sub_module import sub_api
sub_module/__init__.py
from some_file import detail_api
In a_module/__init__.py gives Unable to import 'sub_module' error.
Why I cannot import 'sub_module'?
When I change to the relative path solve the error.
from .sub_module import sub_api
But I don't understand, does __init__.py design for public the API of the module? Why don't treat sub_module as a module instead of a directory? it's such a bad design to me...

__init__.py is executed when you import the package that contains it. But it's not your problem. Your problem is that module imports are always absolute unless explicitly relative. That means that they must chain from some directory in sys.path. By default this includes the working directory, so when you run main.py from within project, it can find a_module, and nothing else.
from sub_module import sub_api
In a_module/__init__.py doesn't work though, because imports are always absolute unless explicitly relative. So that import says "starting from some sys.path root, find a top level package named sub_module and import sub_api from it". Since no such module exists you get an error. from .sub_module import sub_api works because you opted into relative imports, so it doesn't start over from sys.path.
For an example of why you would do this, I'll give you something that broke in our own code back in the Python 2 days before absolute import by default was the law (from __future__ import absolute_import enabled the Py3 behavior, which is how we fixed it, but despite what the docs say, it was never enabled by default in Py2, the only enabled by default behavior was relative imports). Our layout was:
teamnamespace/
module.py
math/
mathrelatedsubmodule.py
othermathsubmodule.py
Now, we innocently thought hey, we'll put all our packages under a single shared top level namespace, and subpackages cover broad categories within them, and since we had a lot of additional utilities for basic mathematics, we put them under teamnamespace.math. Problem was, for the non-math modules, like teamnamespace.module, when they did:
import math # or
from math import ceil
it defaulted to relative lookup, and imported teamnamespace.math as math (a thoroughly useless import, since it was a namespace package only, all the functionality was in the sub-modules), not the built-in math module. In fact, without the Python 3 behavior, there was no reasonable way to get the built-in math module from a module under teamnamespace. Whereas with the Python 3 behavior, you can get either one or both (by aliasing one or the other with as, with no ambiguity:
# Gets built-in
import math
# Gets teamnamespace.math
from . import math

Does a package 'see' itself in __init__.py?

I have a flask app with the root folder called project_folder.
A code snippet from the __init__.py file of this project_folder package:
#jwt.token_in_blacklist_loader
def check_if_token_in_blacklist(decrypted_token):
jti = decrypted_token['jti']
return project_folder.Model.RevokedTokenModel.is_jti_blacklisted(jti)
from project_folder.Controller.root import root
from project_folder.Controller import auth_controller
from project_folder.Controller import item_controller
Now the interesting thing is, that the project_folder package naturally has other smaller packages itself, which I'm importing to use them (for REST resources in this example). These are the last 3 lines, nothing throws an error so far.
But, if you take a look at the annotated function (in this example it always runs before some kind of JWT Token is being used), I am returning some inner package's function. Now when the logic truly runs this part the code breaks:
PROJECT_ROUTE\project_folder\__init__.py", line 38, in check_if_token_in_blacklist
return project_folder.Model.RevokedTokenModel.is_jti_blacklisted(jti)
NameError: name 'project_folder' is not defined
After thinking about it, it seems understandable. Importing from project_folder does import from the __init__.py file of the package, which is the actual file the interpreter currently is. So removing the package name prefix form the
return project_folder.Model.RevokedTokenModel.is_jti_blacklisted(jti)
to
return Model.RevokedTokenModel.is_jti_blacklisted(jti)
does not throw an error anymore.
The question is: Why is it only a problem inside the callback function and not with the last 3 imports?

This has to do with circular imports in python. Circular import is a form of circular dependency, created at the module import level.
How it works:
When you launch your application, python keeps a register (a kind of table) in which it records all the imported modules. When you call somewhere in your code a module, python will see in its registry if it has already been registered and loads it from there. You can access this registry via sys.module, which is actually a dictionary containing all the modules that have been imported since Python was started.
Example of use:
>>> import sys
>>> print('\n'.join(sys.modules.keys()))
So, since Python is an interpreted language, reading and execution of code is done line by line from top to bottom.
In your code, you put your imports at the bottom of your __init__.py file.
While browsing it, when python arrives at the line return project_folder.Model.RevokedTokenModel.is_jti_blacklisted(jti), it will look if the module exists in its register. Which is clearly not yet the case. That's why he raises an NameError: name 'project_folder' is not defined exception.

call a function from from one python class to another which are at different directories

i need to call a function from from one python class to another which are at different directories.
I'm using Eclipse and PyDev for developing scripts.
sample.py
class Employee:
def meth1(self,arg):
self.arg=arg
print(arg)
ob=Employee()
ob.meth1("world")
main.py
class main:
def meth(self,arg):
self.arg=arg
print(arg)
obj1=main()
obj1.meth("hello")
I need to access meth1 in main.py
updated code
main.py
from samp.sample import Employee
class main:
def meth(self,arg):
self.arg=arg
print(arg)
obj1=main()
obj1.meth("hello")
After executing main.py it is printing "world" automatically without calling it.
my requirement is i need to call meth1 from main.py explicitly
please find my folder below

import is the concept you need here. main.py will need to import sample and then access symbols defined in that module such as sample.Employee
To ensure that sample.py can be found at import time, the path to its parent directory can be appended to sys.path (to get access to that, of course, you will first need to import sys). To manipulate paths (for example, to turn a relative path like '../samp' into an absolute path, you might want to import os as well and take a look at the standard library functions the sub-module os.path has to offer.

You will have to import the sample.py file as a module to your main.py file. Since the files are in different directories, you will need to use the __init__.py
From the documentation:
The __init__.py files are required to make Python treat the directories as containing packages; this is done to prevent directories with a common name, such as string, from unintentionally hiding valid modules that occur later on the module search path. In the simplest case, __init__.py can just be an empty file, but it can also execute initialization code for the package or set the __all__ variable, described later.
Here is a related stack overflow question which explains the solution in more detail.

It's generally not a good idea to alter the sys.path variable. This can make scripts non-portable. Better is to just place your extra modules in the user site directory. You can find out what that is with the following script.
import os
import sys
import site
print(os.path.join(site.USER_BASE, "lib", "python{}.{}".format(*sys.version_info[0:2]), "site-packages"))
Place your modules there. Then you can just import as any other module.
import sample
emp = sample.Employee()
Later you can package it using distutils or setuptools and the imports will still work the same.