PYTHONPATH hell with overlapping package structures

Question

I'm having problems with my PythonPath on windows XP, and I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong.

Say that I have a project (created with Pydev) that has an src directory. Under src I have a single package, named common, and in it a single class module, named service.py with a class name Service

Say now that I have another project (also created with Pydev) with an src directory and a common package. In the common package, I have a single script, client.py, that imports service.

So in other words, two separate disk locations, but same package.

I've noticed that even if I set my PYTHONPATH to include both src directories, the import fails unless the files are both in the same directory. I get the dreaded no module found.

Am I misunderstanding how python resolves module names? I'm used to Java and its classpath hell.

Answer 1

I think in Python you are best off avoiding this problem by providing each package with a unique name. Don't name both packages common. Then you can import both with something like

import common1.service as cs
import common2.client as cc