Module pathhack

Overview

pathhack helps Python find modules associated with the operation of the Knowbot software. With pathhack, modules needed by KOS components and tools can be found during import.

As a side effect of importing this module, sys.path is hacked to include all relevant directories.

In order to bootstrap this, the environment variable $PYTHONPATH must include the directory containing the pathhack module, or the script must contain a line like this before importing pathhack:

import sys, os
sys.path.append(os.path.join(sys.path[0], "../../common"))

(The number of "../" segments should reflect the depth of the script file relative to $KOSROOT.)

This module has knowledge of where it lives relative to $KOSROOT. If its location changes, it needs to be updated. It contains a sophisticated warning feature that tells you immediately when such an update is necessary. :-)

pathhack is a module that does all it's work simply by importing it.

Constants

KPDIRS: A tuple of directory names containing modules deemed useful for KPs.

USERDIRS: A set of directories containing modules deemed useful for ordinary code.

Functions

kos_root ()

Return the root of the KOS source tree.

common_root ()

Return the root of the shared development tree.

platform_name ()

Return a name for a directory containing architecture-specific files.

python_binary ()

Return the pathname of the Python binary if found in $PATH. Raise IOError if not found.

get_short_hostname ()

Return a shortened version of the current host name (i.e., with the domain name stripped off).