getting "this" module's path

[Skip Montanaro]

    Clark> How do I get the path name for a module (in particular, the
    Clark> module that is currently executing?).

Modules written in Python and dynamically linked extension modules all have
a __file__ attribute.  Statically linked extension modules do not, however:

    >>> import os
    >>> os.__file__
    '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/os.pyc'
    >>> import math
    >>> math.__file__
    '/usr/local/lib/python2.2/lib-dynload/math.so'
    >>> import sys
    >>> sys.__file__
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
    AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute '__file__'

You probably don't need to know the path to statically linked modules, so
this is only a minor limitation (though for the sake of consistency it would
be nice if it didn't raise an exception, but returned an empty string or the
path to the executable).

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip at pobox.com - http://www.mojam.com/)