Add to python path mac os x

Question

I thought

import sys sys.path.append("/home/me/mydir") 

is appending a dir to my pythonpath

if I print sys.path my dir is in there.

Then I open a new command and it is not there anymore.

But somehow Python cant import modules I saved in that dir.

What Am I doing wrong?

I read .profile or .bash_profile will do the trick.

Do I have to add:

PATH="/Me//Documents/mydir:$PYTHONPATH" export PATH 

To make it work?

Answer 1

Modifications to sys.path only apply for the life of that Python interpreter. If you want to do it permanently you need to modify the PYTHONPATH environment variable:

PYTHONPATH="/Me/Documents/mydir:$PYTHONPATH" export PYTHONPATH 

Note that PATH is the system path for executables, which is completely separate.

**You can write the above in ~/.bash_profile and the source it using source ~/.bash_profile

Answer 2

Not sure why Matthew's solution didn't work for me (could be that I'm using OSX10.8 or perhaps something to do with macports). But I added the following to the end of the file at ~/.profile

export PYTHONPATH=/path/to/dir:$PYTHONPATH 

my directory is now on the pythonpath -

my-macbook:~ aidan$ python Python 2.7.2 (default, Jun 20 2012, 16:23:33)  [GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple Clang 4.0 (tags/Apple/clang-418.0.60)] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import sys >>> sys.path ['', '/path/to/dir', ...   

and I can import modules from that directory.