Python Essential Reference, Second Edition

The Module Search Path

When loading modules, the interpreter searches the list of directories in sys.path. The following is a typical value of sys.path:

['', '/usr/local/lib/python2.0', 
     '/usr/local/lib/python2.0/plat-sunos5', 
     '/usr/local/lib/python2.0/lib-tk', 
     '/usr/local/lib/python2.0/lib-dynload', 
     '/usr/local/lib/python2.0/site-packages'] 

The empty string '' refers to the current directory.

To add new directories to the search path, simply append them to this list.