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Programmatic Python API Usage

In addition to the powerful command line interface, isort exposes a complete Python API.

To use the Python API, import isort and then call the desired function call:

Every function is fully type hinted and requires and returns only builtin Python objects.

Highlights include:

  • isort.code - Takes a string containing code, and returns it with imports sorted.
  • isort.check_code - Takes a string containing code, and returns True if all imports are sorted correctly, otherwise, False.
  • isort.stream - Takes an input stream containing Python code and an output stream. Outputs code to output stream with all imports sorted.
  • isort.check_stream - Takes an input stream containing Python code and returns True if all imports in the stream are sorted correctly, otherwise, False.
  • isort.file - Takes the path of a Python source file and sorts the imports in-place.
  • isort.check_file - Takes the path of a Python source file and returns True if all imports contained within are sorted correctly, otherwise, False.
  • isort.place_module - Takes the name of a module as a string and returns the categorization determined for it.
  • isort.place_module_with_reason - Takes the name of a module as a string and returns the categorization determined for it and why that categorization was given.

For a full definition of the API see the API reference documentation or try help(isort) from an interactive interpreter.