diff --git a/pythonpath.sh b/pythonpath.sh
index 711a9e4..1381d15 100644
--- a/pythonpath.sh
+++ b/pythonpath.sh
@@ -1,28 +1,33 @@
 # usage: . pythonpath
 #
 # source this file as above (do not execute it) to set the PYTHONPATH
 # environment variable to the list of directories corresponding to the
 # repositories known to mr
 
-local base_path
-
-base_path=$( dirname "$0" )
-
-local tmp_path
 
+# special case for bash to get the sourced script file path
+if [ -n "${BASH_VERSION}" ] ; then
+  base_path=$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )
+else
+  base_path=$( dirname "$0" )
+fi
+  
 tmp_path=$(
 for dir in $( builtin cd $base_path && bin/ls-all-repos --absolute ) ; do
     if echo "$dir" | grep -q -- '-template$' ; then
         continue
     fi
     if test -d "${dir}/swh/" ; then
         echo "$dir"
     fi
 done \
     | paste -d':' -s)
 
 export PYTHONPATH="$tmp_path"
 
 if [ "$1" = "-p" -o "$1" = "--print" ] ; then
     echo $PYTHONPATH
 fi
+
+unset base_path
+unset tmp_path