best way to ensure './' is at beginning of sys.path?

[Ben Finney]

Neal Becker <ndbecker2 at gmail.com> writes:

> I want to make sure any modules I build in the current directory
> overide any others. To do this, I'd like sys.path to always have './'
> at the beginning.

The ‘sys.path’ list is used only for *absolute* imports. Modules in the
current directory should not be imported with an absolute path[0]. So, the
current directory should not be in ‘sys.path’.

So, for the past ten years and more, Python supports import of modules
from the current directory with an explicit *relative* path::

    # Absolute imports, searching ‘sys.path’.
    import datetime
    from collections import namedtuple

    # Relative imports, starting from this module's directory.
    from . import foo
    from .bar import baz

See <URL:https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0328/>, in particular
<URL:https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0328/#guido-s-decision>.


[0]: Why not? See the rationale for forcing absolute import by default
     <URL:https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0328/#rationale-for-absolute-imports>,
     “[I]t is not clear whether ‘import foo’ refers to a top-level
     module or to another module inside the package.[…] It's a
     particularly difficult problem inside packages because [without
     explicit relative import syntax] there's no way to specify which
     module is meant.”

-- 
 \         “True greatness is measured by how much freedom you give to |
  `\      others, not by how much you can coerce others to do what you |
_o__)                                               want.” —Larry Wall |
Ben Finney