What does "module object is not callable" mean?

Question

I'm using the .get_data() method with mechanize, which appears to print out the html that I want. I also check the type of what it prints out, and the type is 'str'. But when I try to parse the str with BeautifulSoup, I get the following error: ``` --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TypeError Traceback (most recent call last) in () 7 html = get_html(first[i],last[i]) 8 print type(html) ----> 9 print parse_page(html) 10 # l_to_store.append(parse_page(html)) 11 # hfb_data['l_to_store']=l_to_store in parse_hfb_page(html) 3 parse html to extract info in connection with a particular person 4 ''' ----> 5 soup = BeautifulSoup(html) 6 for el in soup.find_all('li'): 7 if el.find('span').contents[0]=='Item:': TypeError: 'module' object is not callable ``` What exactly is 'module', and how do I get what get_data() returns into html?

Accepted Answer

When you import BeatufilulSoup like this:

```
import BeautifulSoup
```

You are importing the module which contains classes, functions etc. In order to instantiate a BeautifulSoup class instance form the BeautifulSoup module you need to either import it or use the full name including the module prefix like yonili suggests in the comment above:

```
from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(html)
```

or

```
import BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup.BeautifulSoup(html)
```

What does "module object is not callable" mean?

Solution

Problem