In [14]:

def _recv_module(name, code):
    """Given a module name and code as text
    
    create an imported module in-memory.
    """
    import sys, types
    sys.modules[name] = mod = types.ModuleType(name)
    exec(code, mod.__dict__)


def send_module(view, name, path):
    """send a local module to the engines, without writing any files."""
    with open(path) as f:
        code = f.read()
    return view.apply(_recv_module, name, code)

In [5]:

%%writefile mymodule.py

constant = 5
def foo(x):
    return constant * x

def bar(y):
    return foo(y)

Writing mymodule.py

In [8]:

import ipyparallel as ipp
rc = ipp.Client()
engines = rc[:]
view = rc.load_balanced_view()

In [9]:

import mymodule

In [10]:

view.apply_sync(mymodule.bar, 5)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------ImportError                               Traceback (most recent call last)/Users/minrk/dev/ip/kernel/ipykernel/serialize.py in unpack_apply_message(bufs, g, copy)
    163     assert len(bufs) >= 2, "not enough buffers!"
    164     pf = buffer_to_bytes_py2(bufs.pop(0))
--> 165     f = uncan(pickle.loads(pf), g)
    166     pinfo = buffer_to_bytes_py2(bufs.pop(0))
    167     info = pickle.loads(pinfo)
/Users/minrk/dev/ip/kernel/ipykernel/pickleutil.py in uncan(obj, g)
    396             break
    397         elif isinstance(obj, cls):
--> 398             return uncanner(obj, g)
    399 
    400     if import_needed:
/Users/minrk/dev/ip/kernel/ipykernel/pickleutil.py in <lambda>(obj, g)
    440 
    441 uncan_map = {
--> 442     CannedObject : lambda obj, g: obj.get_object(g),
    443     dict : uncan_dict,
    444 }
/Users/minrk/dev/ip/kernel/ipykernel/pickleutil.py in get_object(self, g)
    214         # try to load function back into its module:
    215         if not self.module.startswith('__'):
--> 216             __import__(self.module)
    217             g = sys.modules[self.module].__dict__
    218 
ImportError: No module named 'mymodule'

In [15]:

send_module(engines, 'mymodule', 'mymodule.py').get()

Out[15]:

[None, None, None, None]

In [17]:

view.apply_sync(mymodule.bar, 10)

Out[17]: