How to add something to PYTHONPATH?

Question

I downloaded a package (called pysolr 2.0.15) to my computer to be used with Haystack. The instructions asks me to add pysolr to my PYTHONPATH.

What exactly does tha

Answer 1

The pythonpath tells python were to look for modules, for example you might have written a library that you want to use in several applications and stored it in the path /mylibs/python/ you would then have to add that path to the pythonpath for python to find it.

If you've downloaded a python module or library (I'm not really sure about the naming convention here) and you've just saved it in a random place on your computer, then you have to add it to your pythonpath.

However if you used easy_install or PIP then you dont have to worry.

To add something to the python-path in a *nix system you write:

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/<path_to_modules>

Answer 2

Maybe, putting a path to pysolr to sys.path will do a work. Put this at settings.py or init.py of your django-project:

PYSOLR_PATH = '/path/to/pysolr/'
import sys
if not PYSOLR_PATH in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(PYSOLR_PATH)

sys.path is a list of strings that specifies the search path for modules.