module search path

[Jive Dadson]

I've found tons of documentation about searching for modules, but still mysteries remain.

1) When I say, "sys.path", I see a long list of files, which are approximately the ones I would expect to see.  However, there is no OS enviornment variable PYTHONPATH.  Where is Python finding that list of files?

2) How can I view the search algorithm?  I want to know things like, does it look for a .dll or .pyd before .pyc or .py?

Yours truly, etc. etc.