Simple Python Plugin Loader

This module provides a simple way to dynamically load other Python modules as Plugins to your current project.

Install

You can install this python module via pip:

pip install simple-plugin-loader

Otherwise the module can be downloaded from PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/simple-plugin-loader/

Usage

Import the module:
```
from simple_plugin_loader import Loader
```

Load your plugins/modules:

# initialize the loader
loader = Loader()

# load your plugins
plugins = loader.load_plugins(<plugin_path>, <plugin_base_class>, <specific_plugins>, <recursive>, <verbose>)

(Optional) The already loaded plugins/modules can be accessed via the plugins property of the loader instance:
```
plugins = loader.plugins
```

`load_plugins(...)` Method

This method does the actual plugin loading.

It loads only Python modules that can be executed in the current environment. If a module e.g. contains syntax errors or depends on other not installed Python modules, it will be skipped. So the main program does not fail completely.

Arguments

<plugin_path>: str
This string represents the path (relative or absolute) to the directory from where the plugins/modules should be loaded.
<plugin_base_class>: class (Default: SamplePlugin)
The Loader does not load all found modules that are in the above directory. It only loads classes that are sub-classes of the here specified class.
The default value of this argument is the SamplePlugin class. You can use this class as the base class for your plugins:
```
from simple_plugin_loader.sample_plugin import SamplePlugin

class YourPlugin(SamplePlugin):
    pass
```
<specific_plugins>: List[str] (Default: [])
This list can contain case sensitive class names, that should be loaded. Then no other plugins will be loaded. The argument <plugin_base_class> will also be ignored, so any class can be loaded.
<recursive>: bool (Default: False)
Set this flag to True if you wish to load plugins/modules recursively to the above directory.
<verbose>: bool (Default: False)
This flag controls the debug output of this method. If enabled, information about (not) loaded plugins/modules are printed.

Return value

The method returns a dictionary that has the following structure:

Key: The name of the plugin/module. This name is the module name of the module that contains the plugin class.
Value: The plugin class. Not an instance!