what is the difference between "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/" and "/Library/Python/2.7/"

python-2.7

Solution

python.org

The installer from python.org installs to `/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/`, and only that python executable looks in the contained site-package dir for packages.

/Library/Python

In contrast, the dir `/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/` is a global place where you can put python packages, all python 2.7 interpreter will. (For example the python 2.7 that comes with OS X).

~/Library/Python

The dir `~/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages`, if it exists, is also used but for your user only.

sys.path

From within python, you can check, which directories are currently used by `import sys; print(sys.path)`

homebrew

Note, a python installed via homebrew, will put it's site-packages in `$(brew --prefix)/lib/python2.7/site-packages` but also be able to import packages from `/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages` and `~/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages`.

Problem

Original source