The Distutils Python module includes functions to obtain information about the Python installation. This may be useful for system administrators, and it certainly caught my eye when I read about it.
The results below are from Apple’s bundled build of Python 2.5.1 in Mac OS X Leopard. Credit for the comments describing each function comes from the distutils.sysconfig documentation.
>>> import distutils.sysconfig
>>> distutils.sysconfig.get_python_version() # Get the major Python version without patchlevel
'2.5'
>>> distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib(standard_lib=True) # Return the directory containing the Python library; if 'standard_lib' is true, return the directory containing standard Python library modules
'/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5'
>>> distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib() # Otherwise, return the directory for site-specific modules
'/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages'
>>> distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib(plat_specific=True) # Return any platform-specific modules from a non-pure-Python module distribution
'/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages'
You’d install your own modules for system-wide use in the directory returned by distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib().
