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newbie questions about sys.path, wxpython, IDLE and pythonwin

Robin Dunn robin at alldunn.com
Thu Jul 15 00:45:16 EDT 1999 
MB <ritm at gnet.tn> wrote in message news:378B7A69.12874AAC at gnet.tn...
>  Then I
> tried the same thing through the IDLE GUI and received this error:
> ------------------
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "C:\PROGRA~1\PYTHON\TOOLS\IDLE\ScriptBinding.py", line 131, in
> run_module_event
>     execfile(filename, mod.__dict__)
>   File "C:\Program Files\Python\wxPython\demo\demo.py", line 3, in ?
>     import Main
> ImportError: No module named Main
> -----------------
>
> Obviously it was a problem of path.

Since demo.py imports things in the same directory where demo.py lives, it
should be found by default.  Perhaps IDLE is masking this path feature
somehow?  What is the CWD when executing from an edit buffer?

> So I added the directory an its
> subdirectories to sys.path and tried again. I received this
>
> ---------------------------------
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "C:\PROGRA~1\PYTHON\WXPYTHON\DEMO\Main.py", line 186, in
> OnSelChanged
>     self.GetDemoFile('Main.py')
>   File "C:\PROGRA~1\PYTHON\WXPYTHON\DEMO\Main.py", line 221, in
> GetDemoFile
>     except IOException:
> NameError: IOException
> Traceback (innermost last):
>   File "C:\PROGRA~1\PYTHON\WXPYTHON\DEMO\Main.py", line 186, in
> OnSelChanged
>     self.GetDemoFile('Main.py')
>   File "C:\PROGRA~1\PYTHON\WXPYTHON\DEMO\Main.py", line 221, in
> GetDemoFile
>     except IOException:
> NameError: IOException
> ---------------------------------


The demo expects that its current working directory is where the demo.py
lives.  It tries to open files there.

>
> Other thing. I examined demo.py through the debugger under pythonwin I
> found this statement:
> 'import miscc'
> The interpreter import this module but is not able to locate it. When I
> type >>> miscc it says that is a built-in module. Are there modules that
> are not python files ? What is a built-in module ? I didn't find its
> definition in the docs.

The miscc module, and about a dozen others are Python extension modules
written in C++.  Most of them live in wxc.pyd and are initialized when the
wxc module is imported.  Since it is not written in Python, it's a bit hard
for the debugger to trace into it.  You can read more about extension
modules in the "Extending and Embedding" document at
http://www.python.org/doc/  Also, the wxPython sources can be downloaded and
you can browse the C++ code to your hearts content.  On the other hand since
I (the author) don't even like reading it you might not want to.  It's
generated by SWIG and is fairly ugly.


> Last question. About the  syntaxic ':' at the end of a line when it
> begins with def, class,if ,when,etc... Is it absolutely necessary for
> the language ?

Yep.  The ":" is what keeps the def, class, if, when, etc. from falling off
the end of the line.  <grin>


--
--
Robin Dunn
robin at AllDunn.com
http://AllDunn.com/robin/
http://AllDunn.com/wxPython/  Check it out!
Try http://AllDunn.com/laughworks/ for a good laugh.
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