How Python Finds Imported Modules

See Python: Tips and Tricks for similar articles.

The Python interpreter must locate imported modules. Where does it look for them?

When import is used within a script, the interpreter searches for the imported module in the following places sequentially:

  1. The current directory (same directory as script doing the importing).
  2. The library of standard modules.
  3. The paths defined in sys.path.*

*sys.path contains a list of strings specifying the search path for modules. The list is os-dependent. To see your list, run the following code at your Python command prompt or in an IPython notebook cell:

import sys
sys.path

That will output something like this:

['',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\python35.zip',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\DLLs',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\lib',
 'D:\\Anaconda3',
 'd:\\anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\setuptools-20.3-py3.5.egg',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\Sphinx-1.3.1-py3.5.egg',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\cryptography-1.0.2-py3.5-win-amd64.egg',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\win32',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\win32\\lib',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\Pythonwin',
 'D:\\Anaconda3\\lib\\site-packages\\IPython\\extensions',
 'C:\\Users\\Nat\\.ipython']

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