importlib.import_module() and when you need it

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A regular 'import pandas' is a static statement - the name must be a literal identifier in the source code. Sometimes you need to import a module whose name you only know at runtime: a plugin system where module names come from config, a test harness that discovers test files, or a CLI that loads backends by name. importlib.import_module('pandas') does the same thing as 'import pandas' but accepts a string. You can also pass a package argument for relative imports: importlib.import_module('.utils', package='mypackage'). The result is the module object, which you can then use like any imported module. A common pattern in plugin architectures: for plugin_name in config['plugins']: plugin = importlib.import_module(plugin_name); plugin.register(app).