This section of the tutorial discusses the module search path:
http://docs.python.org/tut/node8.html
6.1.1 The Module Search Path
When a module named spam is imported, the interpreter searches for a file
named
spam.py in the current directory, and then in the list of directories
specified
by the environment variable PYTHONPATH. This has the same syntax as the
shell
variable PATH, that is, a list of directory names. When PYTHONPATH is not
set,
or when the file is not found there, the search continues in an
installation-
dependent default path; on Unix, this is usually .:/usr/local/lib/python.
Actually, modules are searched in the list of directories given by the
variable
sys.path which is initialized from the directory containing the input script
(or the current directory), PYTHONPATH and the installation-dependent
default.
This allows Python programs that know what they're doing to modify or
replace
the module search path. Note that because the directory containing the
script
being run is on the search path, it is important that the script not have
the
same name as a standard module, or Python will attempt to load the script
as a
module when that module is imported. This will generally be an error. See
section 6.2, ``Standard Modules,'' for more information.
Jeff
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