CodeGenLoader is a Python import hook that transparently runs a code generator at import time, allowing the use of generated code without a separate compilation step. The package includes an extensible base class as well as implementations for the Protocol Buffer and Thrift code generators.

pip install codegenloader

CodeGenLoader runs on Python 2 (2.5+) and 3, including pypy and jython. The base class does not have any external dependencies, but to use the Thrift or Protocol Buffer subclasses you will need the thrift or protobuf packages installed. Note that protobuf 3.0.0 (currently in alpha) is required to use protobuf on Python 3.

Add the following two lines to mypackage/proto/__init__.py:

import codegenloader.protobuf
__path__ = codegenloader.protobuf.make_path(__name__, ".")

Now, assuming foo.proto exists in in mypackage/proto/, you can do:

from mypackage.proto.foo_pb2 import Foo

The source code is hosted at https://github.com/bdarnell/codegenloader Detailed documentation can be found at http://codegenloader.readthedocs.org