I'm using zsh terminal, and I'm trying to add a new entry (/home/david/pear/bin) to the PATH variable. I don't see a reference to the PATH variable in my ~/.zshrc file, but doing echo $PATH returns:
/usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
So I know that the path variable is being set somewhere. Where is the PATH variable set / modified for the zsh terminal?
Actually, using ZSH allows you to use special mapping of environment variables. So you can simply do:
# append
path+=('/home/david/pear/bin')
# or prepend
path=('/home/david/pear/bin' $path)
# export to sub-processes (make it inherited by child processes)
export PATH
For me that's a very neat feature which can be propagated to other variables.
Example:
typeset -T LD_LIBRARY_PATH ld_library_path :
Here, add this line to .zshrc:
export PATH=/home/david/pear/bin:$PATH
EDIT: This does work, but ony's answer above is better, as it takes advantage of the structured interface ZSH provides for variables like $PATH. This approach is standard for bash, but as far as I know, there is no reason to use it when ZSH provides better alternatives.
You can append to your PATH in a minimal fashion. No need for
parentheses unless you're appending more than one element. It also
usually doesn't need quotes. So the simple, short way to append is:
path+=/some/new/bin/dir
This lower-case syntax is using path as an array, yet also
affects its upper-case partner equivalent, PATH (to which it is
"bound" via typeset).
(Notice that no : is needed/wanted as a separator.)
Common interactive usage
Then the common pattern for testing a new script/executable becomes:
path+=$PWD/.
# or
path+=$PWD/bin
Common config usage
You can sprinkle path settings around your .zshrc (as above) and it will naturally lead to the earlier listed settings taking precedence (though you may occasionally still want to use the "prepend" form path=(/some/new/bin/dir $path)).
Related tidbits
Treating path this way (as an array) also means: no need to do a
rehash to get the newly pathed commands to be found.
Also take a look at vared path as a dynamic way to edit path
(and other things).
You may only be interested in path for this question, but since
we're talking about exports and arrays, note that
arrays generally cannot be exported.
You can even prevent PATH from taking on duplicate entries
(refer to
this
and this):
typeset -U path
PATH pre-populated
The reason your path already has some entries in it is due to your system shell files setting path for you. This is covered in a couple other posts:
Why and where the $PATH env variable is set?
Where is the source of $PATH? I cannot find it in .zshrc
one liner, without opening ~/.zshrc file
echo -n 'export PATH=~/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.zshrc
or
echo -n 'export PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.zshrc
To see the effect, do source ~/.zshrc in the same tab or open a new tab
Added path to ~/.zshrc
sudo vi ~/.zshrc
add new path
export PATH="$PATH:[NEW_DIRECTORY]/bin"
Update ~/.zshrc
Save ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
Check PATH
echo $PATH
OPTION 1: Add this line to ~/.zshrc:
export "PATH=$HOME/pear/bin:$PATH"
After that you need to run source ~/.zshrc in order your changes to take affect OR close this window and open a new one
OPTION 2: execute it inside the terminal console to add this path only to the current terminal window session. When you close the window/session, it will be lost.
If you are on macOS (I'm on Monterey 12.3.1), you may have been pulling your hair like I did metaphorically. These instructions above all worked for me within the terminal session, but I could never get it to persist no matter what I did with export. Moreover, I couldn't find the .zshrc anywhere.
Turns out Apple does it differently. The file you need to edit is etc/paths. You can simply sudo nano /etc/paths and add your path in a new line. Then simply restart terminal and voila.
for me PATH=$PATH:/path/to/file/bin
then export PATH worked.
to check echo $PATH . other solutions are adding the path temporarily.
I'm on Monterey 12.4 and the only way I could change the path was using the helper function. Editing text files in nano did diddly squat
# append
path+=('/foo/bar/yourpath')
# export to sub-processes
export PATH
to verify your new directory has been added correctly, you can use
print -l $path
thanks to the fact that its type is known to be an array
how to append new plugin to zshrc file. I tried the below syntax but it replaced with new one.
sed -i -e 's/plugins=(.*)/plugins=(zsh-syntax-highlighting)/' ~/.zshrc
I want to add git, file, docker etc.
pl give me the corrected syntax.
KSK
Given below are the contents of my /etc/environment file
alias ...="cd ../../"
alias ls="ls -al"
export blah="blah blah"
When I start new terminal session and change to sudo user as sudo su, only the export command has run, which I am able to verify using env. The aliases are not set.
If I run source /etc/environment the aliases get set as expected. Am I missing something? I also read that /etc/environment is only read when the system boots. Is that true?
I am running on RHEL 7.
The /etc/environment is intended for setting environment variables for every user on login. Therefore you don't need to use export in this file.
Adding alias into this file won't work, because this file is not a shell script and only accepts variable=value pairs.
/etc/environment is used by the PAM-env module and is agnostic to
login/non-login, interactive/non-interactive and also Bash/non-Bash,
so scripting or glob expansion cannot be used. The file only accepts
variable=value pairs.
It's not possible to export aliases or set them globally - they need to be set again in every shell instance.
The file you want to use is ~/.bashrc in a home directory of a user. This file gets executed every time a user opens a bash shell. So aliases and variables set in this file will have effect only on that shell.
You can also use /etc/bash.bashrc which is System-wide .bashrc file for interactive bash shells.
The reason why the export in your /etc/environment worked and actually created and env variable is that the pam-env parser specifically ignores export keyword to avoid confusion for people who don't know that /etc/environment is not a shell script.
You can see that in pam_env.c source code
/* skip over "export " if present so we can be compat with
bash type declarations */
if (strncmp(key, "export ", (size_t) 7) == 0)
key += 7;
Its available for example here - Linux-PAM/pam_env.c v0.79. See line 00234.
I have a strange situation where I'm using zsh full-time, and any bash scripts I run are not picking environment variables properly. Obviously I don't expect bash to pick up env vars that are defined in zsh's environment, so I am using ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile, but that doesn't work either.
For example, here's a test script:
#!/bin/bash
echo $MYTEST
I've added this line to both ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile to cover my bases:
export MYTEST="hello"
I just get a blank line when running the script.
PS: I know running . ./testscript will work, but that's not an option since it's a system-wide script that's failing to pull env vars.
Oops. Maybe I should try having export VAR=val in my ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/vars.zsh instead of just VAR=val!
I want to disable the Unix shell prompt character ($, #, %) which usually we see in terminal. Is there any command or setting which can do this? I am using Solaris OS.
By shell prompt character I mean:
>$
>#
You need to adjust your PS1 environment variable in your .profile file.
I guess you could set it to "" to have it empty.
ex:
export PS1=""
EDIT: it can also be in your .bashrc file, or any other shell you are using.
You can get fancy and put the host name in there. But basically you change the PS1 environment variable:
export PS1=hello
You can add this command in your ~/.bashrc file. Or other startup file, if you use another shell.
I suggest first check the man pages for the shell (whatever is yours? echo $SHELL) under shell variables.
There are four types of prompt strings(PS) PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, for your problem PS1 adjustment is sufficient.
To check the current settings: echo $PS1
To change: PS1="" for the current session, to make it permanent export it in your ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile.
To make it permanent for the user: export PS1="whatever special characters you want"
for more special characters and examples you can visit here "http://linuxconfig.org/bash-prompt-basics"
We have few executable which need some environment setting.
We manually running those scripts before running the executable
Like
$ . setenv.ksh
We have to encompass call these in one script to avoid the manual work.
We written a sh script like
#!/bin/sh
. setenv.ksh
./abc &
Still the environments are not setting in that session. I think the “. setenv.ksh” runs with fork and it’s not setting the environment.
Please me to solve this problem. Which command we use to run the setenv.ksh so, this will work fine.
Thanks
I notice the environment script is called setenv.ksh but you try to run it from /bin/sh. Maybe your system has a shell other than ksh as /bin/sh and it misparses something it setenv.ksh. Try changing the shebang line to #!/bin/ksh (or whatever the path to ksh is on your system).
In setenv.ksh, you need to export all environment variables you set so that any sub-shell will inherit the values:
export MYENV=myValue