I'm tearing my hair out at what seems like weird import behaviour I'm getting from Python's stdlib test script, regrtest.py (not for the first time: seem to have forgotten the resolution from last time, and the time before, and the time before that, when this damn test script of Python's had me screaming at the screen... I don't seem to be learning my lesson here :( )
*Please* somebody inform me *what* affects what file Python will pick up, other than: 0. Python executable 1. sys.path 2. current working directory 3. Directory in which script lives 4. Directory from which script was invoked 5. The contents of one's hard drive Even with all of these constant (and not all of them should directly affect the outcome in any case, I know), I get different modules picked up from imports in two scripts, and I'm damned if I can see why. Here's the first script, just a test script: import os, sys sys.path = ['/hda/usr/local/buf/python/python/dist/src/Lib', '/home/john/lib/python', '/usr/local/lib/python24.zip', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/plat-linux2', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/lib-tk', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/site-packages'] abstest = "test.test_urllib2" print 'abstest', abstest print 'sys.path', sys.path print 'cwd', os.getcwd() the_package = __import__(abstest, globals(), locals(), []) print 'the_package.__path__', the_package.__path__ If I stick that script in my Python CVS Lib/test directory as blah.py, then cd to Lib and: $ python2.4 test/blah.py abstest test.test_urllib2 sys.path ['/hda/usr/local/buf/python/python/dist/src/Lib', '/home/john/lib/python', '/usr/local/lib/python24.zip', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/plat-linux2', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/lib-tk', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/site-packages'] cwd /hda/usr/local/buf/python/python/dist/src/Lib ************* the_package.__path__ ['/hda/usr/local/buf/python/python/dist/src/Lib/test'] All as expected: I pick up Lib/test/test_urllib2.py -- that ******* business is coming from a print >> sys.stderr statement I inserted at module level in that copy of the module (though the >> sys.stderr is probably unnecessary, since IIRC regrtest does not rebind sys.stdout when the -v option is given, as in my usage below). But, when I run the second script, Lib/test/regrtest.py, with a modified sys.path (see paragraph below) and the same print statements as in my test script inserted: $ python2.4 test/regrtest.py -f test/torun -v test_urllib2 abstest test.test_urllib2 sys.path ['/hda/usr/local/buf/python/python/dist/src/Lib', '/home/john/lib/python', '/usr/local/lib/python24.zip', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/plat-linux2', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/lib-tk', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/site-packages'] cwd /hda/usr/local/buf/python/python/dist/src/Lib the_package.__path__ ['/usr/local/lib/python2.4/test'] I get the test_urllib2.py from /usr/local/lib/python2.4 (note __path__ and lack of *****s), though everything else (sys.path, cwd, etc.) remains the same as my test script above! The only change I made to regrtest other than the print statements was to add Lib to sys.path, so I pick up modules from CVS instead of the installed 2.4 versions (yeah, I know I should build and install a python2.5 executable from CVS, but I don't see how that's relevant here). Why??? Help! stupid-stupid-stupid-gnnnnhhhhh-<wink>-ly y'rs, John -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
