I was trying to run a Python script via Mac's Automator and the command is very straight forward:
"cd /Users/myname/Desktop/project && python3 myprojectapp.py".
However, every time I tried to run it, Automator raised an error such as ModuleNotFoundError. This was however, impossible since I had all libraries (e.g. Pandas) installed and running the command in the Terminal as written above worked flawlessly.
Now, I've read somewhere for a similar problem to just include: "export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH" before the command and it worked. Now, before I go on with my life, I would like to understand what exactly this extra line does and how it affects Automator to the point of making the script work.
Thank you in advance!
That command basically modifies the environment variable PATH and puts the directory /usr/local/bin before everything that is currently in PATH. However, that command is temporary, and the environment variable PATH is restored when the session closes.
What could be happening is the python you're running in terminal and the python Automator is running are different./usr/local/bin probably contains the same python version as you are using in terminal. Take a look at ~/.bash_profile to see if something similar to export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH is in there.
Another way to check is to type which python in both and see if it points to the same python. You probably have yet another python somewhere in the list of directories in your PATH variable.
It's common to use virtual python environments to keep track of which python is running and to experiment with python without messing with system python. Examples of these include: Anaconda and virtualenv.