How to append multiple Paths to PYTHONPATH programmatically

Question

I have 4 directories:

/home/user/test1
/home/user/test2
/home/user/test3
/home/user/test4

I have another directory with tests

/home/user/testing

having the file testall.py

ow, how can I append PATHS, for test1 thru test4 to PYTHONPATH so that I can access the files under test1 thru 4.

btw, test1 thru 4 have multiple directories under them where the python files are located.

I tried:

import sys
import os
PROJECT_ROOT = os.path.dirname(__file__)
sys.path.insert(0,os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT,"test1"))
sys.path.insert(1,os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT,"test2"))
sys.path.insert(2,os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT,"test3"))
sys.path.insert(3,os.path.join(PROJECT_ROOT,"test4"))

did not seem to work

also:

import sys
sys.path.append('/home/user/test1','/home/user/test2','/home/user/test3','/home/kahmed/test4')
from test1.common.api import GenericAPI

did not work.

basically: from test1.common.api import GenericAPI should work

Solution 1

Try this:

import sys
sys.path.append('/home/user/')
from test1.common.api import GenericAPI

It is not recommended, but will maybe do what you meant to do? Because I guess your files are not in the folder /home/user/test1/test1/common/api/ ...

Given a python path of ["a", "b", "c"], trying to import a.b.c will look in a/a/b/c, then b/a/b/c and c/a/b/c. However, NOT in a/b/c. There is no matching of the module name starting with a and the python path ending with a and then leaving out one of the as. It strictly is path + module, not part-of-path + part-of-module.

Since your question is about "multiple paths", does a single path work for you yet? Doesn't seem so...

Solution 2

sys.path.append('/home/user/test1','/home/user/test2', ...) does not work because append() function can take only 1 argument.

What you could use instead is:

import sys
sys.path += ['/home/user/test1','/home/user/test2','/home/user/test3','/home/kahmed/test4']