gistimporter.py

# A Python 3 meta path finder for importing GitHub gists by id.
# This is a terrible idea.

# Usage:
#     from gist.schlarpc import _6e0119ab5804ace6a90204137541da8e as lxmlresponse
# underscores are stripped from the gist id, but if you don't want to use that or
# if the username doesn't meet the syntax requirements then i guess you can use __import__:
#     lxmlresponse = __import__('gist.schlarpc.6e0119ab5804ace6a90204137541da8e')

import importlib.abc
import importlib.machinery
import itertools
import sys

import requests


def pad_length(iterable, length, fillvalue=None):
    return itertools.islice(itertools.chain(iterable, itertools.repeat(fillvalue)), length)

class GistFinder(importlib.abc.MetaPathFinder):
    @staticmethod
    def find_spec(fullname, path, target=None):
        module, user, gist_id = pad_length(fullname.split('.'), 3)

        if module != 'gist':
            return None
        elif gist_id:
            return importlib.machinery.ModuleSpec(
                fullname,
                GistLoader,
            )
        else:
            return importlib.machinery.ModuleSpec(
                fullname,
                None,
                is_package=True,
            )

class GistLoader(importlib.abc.Loader):
    @staticmethod
    def create_module(spec):
        return None

    @staticmethod
    def exec_module(module):
        _, user, gist_id = module.__name__.split('.')
        url = 'https://gist.github.com/{}/{}/raw'.format(user, gist_id.strip('_'))
        response = requests.get(url)
        response.raise_for_status()
        exec(response.text, module.__dict__)

sys.meta_path.append(GistFinder)