Here is what I learned: PYTHONPATH is a directory to add to the Python import search path "sys.path", which is made up of current dir. CWD, PYTHONPATH, standard and shared library, and customer library. For example:
% python3 -c "import sys;print(sys.path)"
['',
'/home/username/Documents/DjangoTutorial/mySite',
'/usr/lib/python3.6', '/usr/lib/python3.6/lib-dynload',
'/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages']
where the first path '' denotes the current dir., the 2nd path is via
%export PYTHONPATH=/home/username/Documents/DjangoTutorial/mySite
which can be added to ~/.bashrc to make it permanent, and the rest are Python standard and dynamic shared library plus third-party library such as django.
As said not to mess with PYTHONHOME, even setting it to '' or 'None' will cause python3 shell to stop working:
% export PYTHONHOME=''
% python3
Fatal Python error: Py_Initialize: Unable to get the locale encoding
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'encodings'
Current thread 0x00007f18a44ff740 (most recent call first):
Aborted (core dumped)
Note that if you start a Python script, the CWD will be the script's directory. For example:
username@bud:~/Documents/DjangoTutorial% python3 mySite/manage.py runserver
==== Printing sys.path ====
/home/username/Documents/DjangoTutorial/mySite # CWD is where manage.py resides
/usr/lib/python3.6
/usr/lib/python3.6/lib-dynload
/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages
You can also append a path to sys.path at run-time: Suppose you have a file Fibonacci.py in ~/Documents/Python directory:
username@bud:~/Documents/DjangoTutorial% python3
>>> sys.path.append("/home/username/Documents")
>>> print(sys.path)
['', '/usr/lib/python3.6', '/usr/lib/python3.6/lib-dynload',
'/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages',
'/home/username/Documents']
>>> from Python import Fibonacci as fibo
or via
% PYTHONPATH=/home/username/Documents:$PYTHONPATH
% python3
>>> print(sys.path)
['',
'/home/username/Documents', '/home/username/Documents/DjangoTutorial/mySite',
'/usr/lib/python3.6', '/usr/lib/python3.6/lib-dynload',
'/usr/local/lib/python3.6/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages']
>>> from Python import Fibonacci as fibo