How can I import an Odoo/OpenERP Addon module in an interactive python environment?
Question: How do I import an Odoo/OpenERP addon module from a python shell?

I want to learn more about the structure of Odoo. I prefer to do that through
IPython, but I'm not sure how to import addons into the environment. For
starts I merely want to load a default Addon into my environment. So I just
copied a line from the default Product module. I did not modify anything in
the source code. I have been grepping through the source code to find out why
I can't simply import the Addon in the I'm used to with Python.

My Odoo installation works fine.

    
    
    $ cd /opt/odoo
    
    $ ipython
    
    In [1]: import openerp
    
    In [2]: openerp.modules.module?
    
    [not much luck]
    
    In [3]: openerp.addons?
    
    [not much luck either, nothing here either]
    
    In [4]: import openerp.addons
    
    [no error]
    
    In [5]: import openerp.addons.decimal_precision as dp  # Line from addons/product/product.py
    
    [....]
    
    ImportError: No module named decimal_precision
    

`openerp.addons` doesn't have anything but still `import openerp.addons.STUFF`
works fine from Odoo addon modules.

I have the feeling that `addons` needs to be initialized but I haven't found
out how to do that. I started going through the code from
`openerp.main.cli()`.

`openerp.tools.config.parse_config()` is a step in the right direction but
it's not enough. I need to somehow pass `--addons-path=addons` as well (since
Odoo is not smart enough to find its own addons).


Answer: According to [openerp source
code](https://github.com/odoo/odoo/blob/master/openerp/addons/__init__.py)

> Addons are made available under `openerp.addons` after
> openerp.tools.config.parse_config() is called (so that the addons paths are
> known).

so you should call `openerp.tools.config.parse_config()` before doing any
import.

If you need to pass any arguments you can do it as such:
`openerp.tools.config.parse_config(['--addons-path=addons'])`

