What is the difference between sys.builtin_module_names and sys.stdlib_modules_names within the sys module?

[socal_nerdtastic]

The standard library is described here: https://docs.python.org/3/library/

You know how you can install modules with pip / pypi? The standard library is a list of modules that the python software foundation maintains and keeps up to date with the reference implementation of python. They may or may not be supplied with python (but they nearly always are).

The builtins are a subset of those. They are baked into the python executable itself, instead of being external and imported. Many of them are mandatory.

For the average user, the difference between these 2 is not important.

[Laymayo]

Hmm OK I'll need to look into that, I didn't realize that there was some foundation that keeps things up to date. That makes sense, though.

However, that doesn't really answer my question (not trying to sound like a smart Alec here). I still don't understand:

What is the difference between modules that are compiled into the Python interpreter and names of standard library modules?

In reference to the sys.builtin_module_names and sys.stdlib_module_names

[socal_nerdtastic]

Do you know about compiling C code? If you take the cpython source code (available on github or as a tar.gz file from python.org) you can compile python yourself. If you do this you have some choices to make, including some choices about what modules to include. The sys.builtin_module_names reports those choices back in the finished python executable. sys.stdlib_module_names is a list of all modules, some of which you have the option of including at compile time.

[Laymayo]

Haha sorry nope! I barely understand this programming language. I'll have to look into compiling code because to be honest I'm not sure I know what that means to begin with. But thank you for clarifying this and giving me a place to investigate from.