I want something like sys.builtin_module_names except for the standard library. Other things that didn't work: sys.modules - only shows modules that have already been loaded sys.prefix - a path that would include non-standard library modules and doesn't seem to work inside a virtualenv. The reason I want this list is so that I can pass it to the --ignore-module or --ignore-dir command line options of trace. So ultimately, I want to know how to ignore all the standard library modules when using trace or sys.settrace. Continue reading...