Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

Setting up an embedded Python interpreter often involves augmentingsys.path with some application-specific subdirectories, so as not to pollute the system's normal Python installation.

Unfortunately,PyConfig only affords either replacing the default path wholesale, or leaving it as-is (viamodule_search_paths_set). There appears to be no way to augmentsys.path with application-specific directories and no documented way to retrieve the default contents ofsys.path.

A workable solution might be to enhancecfg.module_search_paths_set so that when it's set to 2 or 3, the application's paths shall be prepended / appended tosys.path instead of replacing it.

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

I have already discussed this feature proposal on Discourse

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

https://discuss.python.org/t/embedding-how-do-i-extend-sys-path/75734