Getting Attempted relative import in non-package error in spite of having __init__.py

You cannot run a python module directly as a script (I don't really know the reason why).

EDIT : The reason is explained in the PEP338 which is the spec for the "-m" option.

The release of 2.5b1 showed a surprising (although obvious in retrospect) interaction between this PEP and PEP 328 - explicit relative imports don't work from a main module. This is due to the fact that relative imports rely on __name__ to determine the current module's position in the package hierarchy. In a main module, the value of __name__ is always __main__ , so explicit relative imports will always fail (as they only work for a module inside a package).

For the 2.5 release, the recommendation is to always use absolute imports in any module that is intended to be used as a main module

To test your application, encapsulate api_main in a function and create a top-level main.py file which will run the main loop :

cclogger/api_main.py :

import re
import os


from .bottle import run, default_app, debug, get
from .common_util import date_str_to_datetime, UTCOffset, date_filter

#app = Bottle()


def main():
    default_app().router.add_filter('date', date_filter)

    from . import api, dev

    @get('/index')
    def index():
        return "CCLogger API main live and kicking."

    if dev:
        debug(True)
        run(reloader=True, port=9000)
    else:
        os.chdir(os.path.dirname(__file__))
        application = default_app()

And /main.py :

from cclogger import api_main


if __name__ == '__main__':
    api_main.main()

You can run your application by typing python main.py, python -m main or python -c "import cclogger.api_main; api_main.main()" .

PS : thanks for linking the complete source, it's always much more helpful than the stubs provided with the question.