Location of global libraries for Python on Mac?

Question

I'm fighting with installation SIP for Python on Mac OS X. Finally after compilation and installation when I run console form folder of SIP (locally) I can import sipconfig, but when I`m in other folder I cant - there is no module called sipconfig.

My question is - Where is folder to which I have to copy modules if I want to have them available globally (like "import os"), or how I can check it, because location "/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/" doesn`t work.

Disunion

If /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages doesn't work, then you are probably using a version of Python other than the system Python. – Elvyn

Answer 1

Try checking your python's sys.path list with:

import sys
print(sys.path)

Needham

Answer 2

A simple method I use is to ask a module where it is:

import os
print(os.__file__)

Dingy

Answer 3

/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/ is indeed the right place (assuming it's Mac OS 10.6 "Snow Leopard" - you didn't mention which).

As @diatoid mentioned, check your system path (and make sure you're actually using Python 2.6 by running python -V).

Fantast

Answer 4

For Python 3.5, It's /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/lib/python3.5/site-packages

Tempura

Make sure you aren't using your user Library and use the Macintosh HD Library, this caught me out. – Oriana

Answer 5

You can designate an additional locations when python starts up by setting the environmental variable PYTHONPATH.

If you add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zscrc (depending on your default shell) something like:

PYTHONPATH=/Library/MyPyhonPackages:/Another/Location; export PYTHONPATH

Then those locations will be added to "sys.path" whenever python starts up.

This will give you additional places to store your own packages or modules.

Serrulate

Welcome to the StackOverflow! Your answer is not really relevant to the question. – Fulgurant

The reason I added it here was because this is where I landed when looking for how to add locations to the global list and thought this might be useful to others looking for this. I apologise unreservidly if it was not appropriate to do so. – Serrulate