iPython: 'no module named' ImportError
Question: Windows: I have the Python package CVXOPT installed on my computer for the
regular Python distribution, though not specifically with Anaconda, so it
imports fine when I'm doing text editor/cmd python scripting. I tried
installing CVXOPT with Anaconda, but that didn't work so I'm having to import
the library directly when working with iPython.

My directory structure looks like:

    
    
    C:
    --Python27
    ----Lib
    ------site-packages
    --------cvxopt
    ----------__init__.py
    ----------.....
    

The error occurs when I run this code in an iPython notebook:

    
    
    import sys
    sys.path.append('C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\cvxopt')
    import cvxopt
    

The error:

    
    
    ImportError: No module named cvxopt
    

How can I fix this? Perhaps I'm appending the path incorrectly?


Answer: You're defining a path a bit too deep in your file tree. You need to add to
`sys.path` the folder just before your module:

    
    
    import sys
    sys.path.append('C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages')
    
    import cvxopt
    

Here, `cvxopt` can be found in the `site-packages` folder. If you add the
`cvxopt` folder in the sys path, it'll search a module of that name in the
folder itself and will not checked the base folder.

