title: Automatically fetching latest version of a file on import
body: <p>I have a module that I want to keep up to date, and I'm wondering if this is a bad idea: </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Have a module (mod1.py) in the
    site-packages directory that copies a
    different module from some other
    location into the site-packages
    directory, and then imports * from
    that module.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <pre><code>import shutil
  from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib
  p_source = r'\\SourceSafeServer\mod1_current.py'
  p_local = get_python_lib() + r'\mod1_current.py'
  shutil.copyfile(p_source, p_local)
  from mod1_current import *
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now I can do this in any module, and it will always be the latest version:</p>
  
  <pre><code>from mod1 import function1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This works.... but is there a better way of doing this?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Update</strong></p>
  
  <p>Here is the current process... there is a project under source-control that has a single module: <code>mod1.py</code>  There is also a <code>setup.py</code>  Running <code>setup.py</code> copies <code>mod1.py</code> to the site-packages directory.  </p>
  
  <p>Developers that use the module must run <code>setup.py</code> to update the module. Sometimes, they don't and not having the latest version causes problems.</p>
  
  <p>I want to be able to just check-in the a new version, and any code that imports that module will automatically grab the latest version every time, without anyone having to run <code>setup.py</code></p>