Reading "bash_profile" is doing two things that are contradicting each other - bash

Question

I'm very confused about how my shell is reading bash_profile.
In root, my ~/.bash_profile looks like so
# .bash_profile
# Get the aliases and functions
if [-f ~/.bashrc ]; then
.~/.bashrc
fi
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:$HOME/sbin:$HOME/usr/sbin:$HOME/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/lib
export PATH=$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
unset USERNAME
There is no ~/.profile file.
In a user called maruhan, my ~/.bash_profile looks like so
# .bash_profile
# Get the aliases and functions
if [-f ~/.bashrc ]; then
.~/.bashrc
fi
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin:$HOME/sbin:$HOME/usr/sbin:$HOME/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/home/maruhan/Desktop/issac:/usr/local/lib
ASDF=$ASDF:/home
export PATH=$PATH
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export ASDF=$ASDF
unset USERNAME
And my ~/.profile looks like so
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/home/maruhan/Desktop/issac:/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
ASDF=/home:$ASDF
export ASDF=$ASDF
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
You can clearly see that ASDF is not defined in root's bash_profile.
However when I call export, I get this in root.
declare -x ASDF=":/home"
but nothing about LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
Strangely in maruhan, running export shows both ASDF and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
Also, nothing about ASDF or LD_LIBRARY_PATH exist in /etc/environment. I also don't have a /etc/bash_profile file.
Running echo $0 gives me bash for both root and maruhan.
How come LD_LIBRARY_PATH disappeared in root while ASDF is there?

Answer 1

The rules are a bit complicated. According to bash's man page:
INVOCATION
A login shell is one whose first character of argument zero is a -, or one
started with the --login option.
An interactive shell is one started without non-option arguments (unless -s is
specified) and without the -c option whose standard input and error are both
connected to terminals (as determined by isatty(3)), or one started with the -i
option. PS1 is set and $- includes i if bash is interactive, allowing a shell
script or a startup file to test this state.
... ...
When bash is invoked as an interactive login shell, or as a non-interactive
shell with the --login option, it first reads and executes commands from the
file /etc/profile, if that file exists. After reading that file, it looks for
~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile, in that order, and reads and
executes commands from the first one that exists and is readable. The --noprofile
option may be used when the shell is started to inhibit this behavior.
... ...
When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, bash reads and
executes commands from ~/.bashrc, if that file exists. This may be inhibited by
using the --norc option. The --rcfile file option will force bash to read and
execute commands from file instead of ~/.bashrc.
... ...
Note that on some systems bash may be customized so that it would also execute a system wide rc file (e.g. /etc/bash.bashrc) before sourcing ~/.bashrc for an interactive shell that's not a login shell.
Shells started by a login mechanism (usually with a username/password prompt, like console login, telnet, ssh, ...) are usually login shells. For a login shell, $0 is usually -bash.
[local] % ssh user#host <-- The user is trying to login
Password: P#ssw0rd
[remote] % echo $0
-bash <-- This is a login shell
[remote] % bash <-- This is not a login (no username/password)
[remote] % echo $0
bash <-- Not a login shell
[remote] %
To make life easier I would put all rc things in ~/.bashrc and source ~/.bashrc in ~/.bash_profile. For example:
% cat ~/.bash_profile
[[ -f ~/.bashrc ]] && source ~/.bashrc
% cat ~/.bashrc
# return immediately if not in an interactive shell
[[ $- != *i* ]] && return 0
export FOO=bar
PATH=$PATH:/my/path
%