¿Cómo instalar e importar módulos de Python en tiempo de ejecución?

Puede importar pip en lugar de usar el subproceso:

import pip

def install(package):
    pip.main(['install', package])

# Example
if __name__ == '__main__':
    try:
        import pexpect
    except ImportError:
        install('pexpect')
        import pexpect

Otra toma:

import pip

def import_with_auto_install(package):
    try:
        return __import__(package)
    except ImportError:
        pip.main(['install', package])
    return __import__(package)

# Example
if __name__ == '__main__':
    pexpect = import_with_auto_install('pexpect')
    print(pexpect)

[editar]

Debería considerar usar un requirements.txt junto con pip. Parece que está intentando automatizar implementaciones (¡y esto es bueno!), en mi cinturón de herramientas también tengo virtualenvwrapper, vagrant y ansible.

Esta es la salida para mí:

(test)[email protected]:~/test# pip uninstall pexpect
Uninstalling pexpect:
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/ANSI.py
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/ANSI.pyc
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/FSM.py
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/FSM.pyc
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/fdpexpect.py
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/fdpexpect.pyc
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pexpect-2.4-py2.6.egg-info
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pexpect.py
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pexpect.pyc
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pxssh.py
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pxssh.pyc
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/screen.py
  /usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/screen.pyc
Proceed (y/n)? y
  Successfully uninstalled pexpect
(test)[email protected]:~/test# python test.py
Downloading/unpacking pexpect
  Downloading pexpect-2.4.tar.gz (113Kb): 113Kb downloaded
  Running setup.py egg_info for package pexpect
Installing collected packages: pexpect
  Running setup.py install for pexpect
Successfully installed pexpect
Cleaning up...
<module 'pexpect' from '/usr/lib/python-environments/test/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pexpect.pyc'>
(test)[email protected]:~/test#

Para aquellos que usan una versión de pip superior a 10.x, no hay main función para pip entonces el enfoque alternativo es usar import pip._internal as pip en lugar de import pip como :

Respuesta actualizada de Paulo

import pip._internal as pip

def install(package):
    pip.main(['install', package])

if __name__ == '__main__':
    try:
        import pexpect
    except ImportError:
        install('pexpect')
        import pexpect