How do I find the location of Python module sources?

For a pure python module you can find the source by looking at themodule.__file__. The datetime module, however, is written in C, and therefore datetime.__file__ points to a .so file (there is no datetime.__file__ on Windows), and therefore, you can't see the source.

If you download a python source tarball and extract it, the modules' code can be found in the Modules subdirectory.

For example, if you want to find the datetime code for python 2.6, you can look at

Python-2.6/Modules/datetimemodule.c

You can also find the latest version of this file on github on the web at https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/main/Modules/_datetimemodule.c

Running python -v from the command line should tell you what is being imported and from where. This works for me on Windows and Mac OS X.

C:\>python -v
# installing zipimport hook
import zipimport # builtin
# installed zipimport hook
# C:\Python24\lib\site.pyc has bad mtime
import site # from C:\Python24\lib\site.py
# wrote C:\Python24\lib\site.pyc
# C:\Python24\lib\os.pyc has bad mtime
import os # from C:\Python24\lib\os.py
# wrote C:\Python24\lib\os.pyc
import nt # builtin
# C:\Python24\lib\ntpath.pyc has bad mtime
...

I'm not sure what those bad mtime's are on my install!

The sys.path list contains the list of directories which will be searched for modules at runtime:

python -v
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
['', '/usr/local/lib/python25.zip', '/usr/local/lib/python2.5', ... ]

datetime is a builtin module, so there is no (Python) source file.

For modules coming from .py (or .pyc) files, you can use mymodule.__file__, e.g.

> import random
> random.__file__
'C:\\Python25\\lib\\random.pyc'

Another way to check if you have multiple python versions installed, from the terminal.

$ python3 -m pip show pyperclip

Location: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/lib/python3.7/site-

$ python -m pip show pyperclip

Location: /Users/umeshvuyyuru/Library/Python/2.7/lib/python/site-packages

Just updating the answer in case anyone needs it now, I'm at Python 3.9 and using Pip to manage packages. Just use pip show, e.g.:

pip show numpy

It will give you all the details with the location of where pip is storing all your other packages.

Not all python modules are written in python. Datetime happens to be one of them that is not, and (on linux) is datetime.so.

You would have to download the source code to the python standard library to get at it.

If you are not using interpreter then you can run the code below:

import site
print (site.getsitepackages())

Output:

['C:\\Users\\<your username>\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python37', 'C:\\Users\\<your username>\\AppData\\Local\\Programs\\Python\\Python37\\lib\\site-packages']

The second element in Array will be your package location. In this case:

C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages

In an IDE like Spyder, import the module and then run the module individually. enter image description here

as written above in python just use help(module) ie

import fractions

help(fractions)

if your module, in the example fractions, is installed then it will tell you location and info about it, if its not installed it says module not available

if its not available it doesn't come by default with python in which case you can check where you found it for download info