How to find python path

How do I find out my PYTHONPATH using Python?

How do I find out which directories are listed in my system’s PYTHONPATH variable, from within a Python script (or the interactive shell)?

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You would probably also want this:

Or as a one liner from the terminal:

sys.path might include items that aren’t specifically in your PYTHONPATH environment variable. To query the variable directly, use:

Can’t seem to edit the other answer. Has a minor error in that it is Windows-only. The more generic solution is to use os.pathsep as below:

sys.path might include items that aren’t specifically in your PYTHONPATH environment variable. To query the variable directly, use:

PYTHONPATH is an environment variable whose value is a list of directories. Once set, it is used by Python to search for imported modules, along with other std. and 3rd-party library directories listed in Python’s «sys.path».

As any other environment variables, you can either export it in shell or in

/.bashrc, see here. You can query os.environ[‘PYTHONPATH’] for its value in Python as shown below:

IF defined in shell as

To set PYTHONPATH to multiple paths, see here.

Find The Full Path of The Python Interpreter

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Introduction

Problem Statement: How to find the full path of the currently running Python interpreter?

There are different ways to find the full path of Python interpreters. But first, let’s get the basics out of our way before we unearth the solution to our problem statement.

So, what’s a Python Interpreter? This might be a bit silly to discuss for intermediate coders, however keeping in mind the wide range of audience we have, it is absolutely necessary to understand the basics before we dissect the given question. Please feel free to jump into the solutions right away if you already know what are interpreters.

The Python Interpreter

In simple terms, interpreter is the layer that operates between your program and your computer hardware to get your code running. The Python interpreter is a byte-code interpreter. We will learn about bytecodes in some other discussion but for now you can think of bytecode as a series of instructions or a certain low level program for the Python Interpreter. Each code object contains a bunch of instructions to be executed that is the bytecode in addition to the other data that the interpreter will require.

The interpreter runs the Python code in two different ways:

Finding Python Path

Now let’s dive into the various methods to find the full path of a Python interpreter.

Method 1: Using sys.executable

Note: You have to import the sys module to utilize it.

Example:

While using it in your script, you can do it this way:

Method 2: Using sys.path

Most often beginners intend to install the wrong interpreter module or package in Python. The system then does not allow to import the desired packages. Hence, it becomes necessary to find the right path for the interpreter. You can use the sys.path variable for this purpose.

The sys.path variable is a list of strings that determines the path for the modules, and it also tells where the packages (commonly with pip) have been installed.

Example:

While using it in your script, you can do it this way:

Conclusion

I hope this has been informative. Please stay tuned and subscribe for more tutorials in the future.

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How to Find Path Where Python is Installed on Windows?

Windows normally installs Python on one of the two locations:

For me, it’s the latter. For you, it may be different—this article shows you how to check for yourself! 🙂

For your convenience, I’ve made a short gif that shows how I rushed through the code on my Windows machine:

Before you start, you may want to ask yourself the following question:

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Do You Have Access to a Python Shell?

To get the installation path in a human-readable format, run the following two lines in your Python shell:

This is shown in the following code snippet:

The output on my computer is the following installation path:

You can copy it to the clipboard and use it wherever you need it.

An alternative way is shorter but generates an output that is less desirable with double front-slash path delimiters:

You can see the output in a Python shell on my computer:

Do You Have Access to the Command-Line or Powershell?

To get the Python installation path under Windows using the command line or PowerShell, you can pack the Python code in a concise and easy-to-copy one-liner command:

If Python is regularly installed, you can run the python command from any directory in your PowerShell which makes it extra convenient.

Alternatively, you can check your Python installation path in your Windows command-line by using the simple two-word command “ where Python “. Here’s how this works on my Windows machine:

This gives me the following output:

You’ll learn an additional trick next that allows you to check your Python installation path without access to the Python interpreter or the windows command line.

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Get Python Installation Path Without Shell

To get the Python installation path on Windows without using either the Python interpreter or the command line, check the Windows registry that contains a key for each installed Python version. Both variants are possible:

If you have a 64-bit Windows version, you can find the Python path under the Wow6432Node key:

You can learn how to use these variants in your code on this post. An even more thorough discussion is provided on the official Python wiki here.

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How to find out the Python library installation path?

For installing third-party Python packages I have used a setup.py script that uses setuptools.setup() to install a bunch of packages. After the installation I can find these packages on one machine under /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages and on another machine under /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages.

Now I want to write a Python script that finds out where the third-party packages have been installed. How can I do that?

1) sys.prefix=sys.exec_prefix is on both machines «/usr».

2) The python executable is on both machines /usr/bin/python.

3) distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib() is /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages («local» is missing) on one machine and /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages on the other machine.

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Trending sort is based off of the default sorting method — by highest score — but it boosts votes that have happened recently, helping to surface more up-to-date answers.

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If the packages have already been installed, you could just import them, and look into their __file__ property:

Nearly found a solution to this problem. I refereed to this question and this question so thanks to answers given there.

Firstly you’ll need to get a list of all installed modules into a list. Use this question to capture the output of the solution to this question.

Now you have a list of all installed python modules. You will need to see the format of list and then format it properly to get individual elements as the names of the modules.

Then you can import the modules from their names as strings as explained here. Then as alejandro already said mymodule.__file__ contains the paths.

This is one solution that should work. Not very elegant but I am just a Python beginner who is better at google search than Python

I found a much easier way to find where modules are. This might be the «elegent» solution that OP was looking for.

From the Python docs about sys module sys.path contains

A list of strings that specifies the search path for modules. Initialized from the environment variable PYTHONPATH, plus an installation-dependent default.

Understanding the Python Path Environment Variable in Python

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Environment variables influence the behavior of Python. PYTHONPATH is one such environment variable; that is, it is a key-value pair stored in a computer’s memory. It is available to all programs running in the same environment.В

Understanding the Pythonpath Environment Variable in

An environment variable that lets you add additional directories where Python looks for packages and modules. As these variables are not needed for Python to run, they are not set for most installations. Python can find its standard library. So, the only reason to use PYTHONPATH variables is to maintain directories of custom Python libraries that are not installed in the site packages directory (the global default location). In simple terms, it is used by user-defined modules to set the path so that they can be directly imported into a Python program. It also handles the default search path for modules in Python. PYTHONPATH variable includes various directories as a string to be added to the sys.path directory list. So, with PYTHONPATH, users can import modules that have not been made installable yet.В

Here is an example. The module sample.py has the following content:

В В В В print(«Function is running»)

The script sample_script.py has the following content:

Here is the output:

Traceback (most recent call last):

В В File «scripts/sample_script.py», line 1, in

В В В В import sample

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘sample’

We get such an output because the PYTHONPATH has not been set yet. In layman’s terms, the Python interpreter cannot find the location of the sample.py file. In the next section, we will examine how you can set the PYTHONPATH environment variable on different operating systems.В

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Setting Python Environment Variable PYTHONPATH on Mac

To set the python environment variable PYTHONPATH on Mac, follow the given steps:

Step 1: Open the Terminal.

Step 2: In your text editor, open the

/.bash_profileВ file. For example: atomВ

Step 3: To this file, add the following line at the bottom:В

Step 4: Save this text editor file.

Step 5: Close the terminal.

Step 6: Restart the terminal. You can now read the new settings.В

It would show something like /Users/my_user/code. That is it. PYTHONPATH is set.В

Setting the Python Environment Variable PYTHONPATH on Linux

To set the python environment variable PYTHONPATH on Linux, follow the given steps:

Step 1: Open up the terminalВ

Step 2: In your text editor, open the

/.bashrcВ file. For example: atomВ

Step 3: In this text editor, add this line at the end:

Step 4: Save this text editor file.

Step 5: Close the terminal applicationВ

Step 6: Restart the terminal application. You can read in the new settings. Type:

It will show something likeВ /home/my_user/code:В

You are done setting the PYTHONPATH on your Linux system.

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Setting the Python Environment Variable PYTHONPATH on Windows

Here is how to set PYTHONPATH on aВ windowsВ machine:В

Step 1:В Open My Computer or This PC and right-click on it. Then click on properties.

Step 2:В When the properties window pops up, click on the Advance System Settings.

Step 3:В Click on the environment variable button that appears in the new popped-up window. Here is how it looks:

Step 4:В In the dialog box- new Environment Variable, click on New.В

Step 5:В In the variable dialog box, add the variable’s name as PYTHONPATH. Add the location that you want Python to check every time as a value to the module directory.В

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Step 6: Open the command prompt, execute the python file using the given command:В

(Here, my_script is the name of the python file).В

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Conclusion

We have reached the end of this blog. We saw how you could set the PYTHONPATH environment variable in Python on all three standard operating systems- Linux, Windows, and macOS. After setting up the PYTHON PATH, you can import user-defined modules. And if you wish to master Python, a certification in Python is all you need! However, if you wish to master full-stack development and build a successful career in this field, our PGP in Full Stack Development, in collaboration with Caltech CTME must be your next step.

And on the other hand, if you have any questions in terms of python path, do write to us in the comment section below, and our experts will get back to you!

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