Import module from subfolder – invalid syntax

Here is my Python project folder structure.

project\
    main_code.py
    code\
         __init__.py
         s_utils.py

    data\

in main_code.py I tried:

import os 
os.chdir('absolute path to project folder')
from .code import s_utils

The last line returns error:

ImportError: attempted relative import with no known parent package

What is wrong here? According to this post it should work.

>Solution :

When you use a relative import like from .code import s_utils, Python expects that the script (main_code.py) is being executed as part of a package. This means it should be imported as a module, not run directly as a script.

Running main_code.py directly (e.g., python main_code.py), it is treated as the top-level script, not as part of a package. Therefore, relative imports don’t work because there’s no parent package context.

As a solution you could either replace the relative import with an absolute import:

import os
from code import s_utils

or add the project directory to the Python path:

import os
import sys

project_dir = 'absolute path to project folder'
sys.path.append(project_dir)

from code import s_utils