Question

The latest Python2.7 has a google directory within dist-packages, making it impossible to import the google directory which contains appengine and other packages from another location. Such directory is required to work to effect imports from GoogleAppEngine (GAE) code on the dev_server. Otherwise such imports fail. An example of such import is:

from google.appengine.api import mail

which yields

ImportError: No module named appengine.api

This issue is similar to the one in here and indeed following Alex Martelli’s reply the location of my google import is

In [1]: import google
In [2]: google.__file__
Out[2]: '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/google/__init__.pyc'

rather than the one where I placed the GAE unzipped files.

Any recommended way to fix this? I already thought about dirty hacks to fix this, such as putting soft links in the dist-packages google directory, but again, that’s dirty.

Answer 1

Packages have a special attribute, __path__, which tells the Python interpreter where to look for modules and subpackages. By modifying this, you can let Python find contents from both google directories. Using the pkgutil module, this ought to work (untested):

import pkgutil
import google
google.__path__ = pkgutil.extend_path(google.__path__, google.__name__)