Package Not Resolved Into Submodules After Installing FLORIS v4.5.1 from Source

[WetaYue]

I am trying to install version 4.5.1 of the code from source.
The installation completes successfully, but there seems to be an issue with the package paths.
After installation, the package does not resolve into its submodules.
When I run help(floris), the recognized packages are only the top-level floris and tests directories,
so all internal imports fail because the expected additional floris layer in the path is missing.

[rafmudaf]

Hi @WetYXXX can you share the commands you used and the output of the commands? It would be helpful to see the details.

[WetaYue]

Sorry, I think I’ve found the cause of the issue.
When cloning the repository using git clone -b main https://github.com/NREL/floris.git, the downloaded folder is named floris by default.
Usually, other repositories are named something like floris-main or floris-versionNo instead.
In this case, the folder name floris conflicts with the internal package name floris.
Therefore, if you run basic commands such as ‘from floris import FlorisModel’ without first changing the folder, an import error will occur. Therefore, I thought that following the instructions on the homepage would result in an error.
In summary, running the following commands consecutively will result in an error. However, it actually works if the code is placed in a directory with a different name.

[rafmudaf]

Ok @WetYXXX It's great to hear you found the cause of the issue and worked around it.

Usually, other repositories are named something like ‘floris-main’ or 'floris-versionNo' instead.

FWIW naming the repository and source directory the same is fairly common (see numpy, pandas, JAX). I'm pretty sure it was the suggested layout in the Hitchhiker's Guide to Python. In any case, just because it's the way it has been done doesn't make it right, so thanks for calling it out.

[misi9170]

I'll also add here that I think the issue will only occur if you are still in the root directory that you cloned the repository into; in that special case, the line

from floris import FlorisModel

will try to import FlorisModel from the (upper) directory floris/, which causes the import error. As soon as you move to another directory (and assuming you have run the local pip install of FLORIS, i.e. the line pip install -e floris), the python importer will correctly identify the locally installed floris package, rather then the upper directory floris/ and import correctly.

This does mean that if you want to run scripts from the same root directory as the upper floris/ directory is in, you'll need to rename (upper) floris/ so that the python importer knows you want to import from the locally installed floris package. I think many users (certainly myself) will be trying to run scripts from another subdirectory of the root directory, so the issue doesn't come up.