I recently updated a nodejs executable using npm and now the executable is pointing to the wrong location. when I run the which command in terminal it is pointing to the old non-existant location. How do I update the executable path or shortcut. I'm not a unix person so not sure where that is set.
I don't necessarily need to update the path for all my apps in the environment, just curious to know why that path for the old executable is still hanging around and pointing to the wrong location.
bash caches the paths to executables you've run. You can reset the cache with "hash -r" (or start a new bash session or terminal).
I don't think which ever returns something that doesn't exist. It shows you which version of the executable is being found, based on the search order in your $PATH environment variable.
This $PATH variable is set in your shell. Type $PATH in the terminal to see what your path variable is set to. (Probably something like /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin)
See this question for some instructions to change your shell path variable: Set environment variables on Mac OS X Lion
Can you give more specific examples of where this stuff is, and what files you are looking at, because I don't think your description makes sense (with regard to "pointing to the old non-existant location")?
Related
If I try to run virtualenv, I get this message:
$ virtualenv
-bash: /Users/me/Library/Python/3.6/bin/virtualenv: No such file or directory
It's not surprising that this happens, because I've removed this directories at an earlier point when trying to clean up my computer from different Python versions. However, how does my system know to look in that directory for virtualenv? I've looked in my bash profile, and there is no mention of virtualenv there.
When you type something your command interpreter has to search the command. Of course it cannot try every possible directory on your system. Then it provides to the user a way to control that process. This is the purpose of the PATH environment variable :
$ echo $PATH
will show you the actual value which looks like dir1:dir2:...:dirn, meaning that commands where searched for in dir1, then dir2, etc. You have to remove the value /Users/me/Library/Python/3.6/bin/ from it. The best way is to edit the .bashrc or .bash_profile file to remove the permanent setting of this variable. Then reconnect.
I am trying to execute a Makefile script and my Mac complains about 7zcat, although I already have 7z installed.
/bin/sh: 7zcat: command not found
Any thoughts on what's missing on my system? Thank you!
I have never used 7zcat before.
However, it looks like it needs to be installed on your system.
https://github.com/essentialkaos/7zcat
Also, after you download install 7zcat you have to give it execute permission with chmod. Finally, you have to execute it by calling its full path for example if you installed it to the directory you are in you would run ./7zcat file.7z or you would add the path to the file to your environment's $PATH variable.
I hope this helps. You might have to do some more research though.
When you open a Terminal window and type 7zcat and hit enter, what happens? Same message? Well, if you cannot use it, why should make be able to use it? Where and how have you installed 7z? Is the folder with the 7z binaries in your PATH? Since if it isn't, of course the command won't be found.
When the system shall run a command, it will search for this command in the directories stored in the PATH variable. Execute echo $PATH in terminal and you will get a colon separated list of directories; only these directories are searched for binaries. So either you must move your binaries to one of these (or put a symlink to one of these) or add the directory with these binaries to the PATH.
Yet there is no official 7z command line installer for MacOS, which brings me back to the original questions "Where and how have you installed 7z?" And are you sure that whatever you installed even includes a 7zcat?
I have been looking throughout the system but I cannot find it. When I do echo $PATH I get the stuff I added, plus the default path. I do not have a .profile, and I do have a .bashrc, but the default path is not in there. I am looking for it just to know where it is located because all the tutorials explain that its in .profile... but what if you don't have one? Where is it located then? Anybody have any ideas?
If you do sudo man path_helper, it talks a bit about how it puts the path together. You might look in /etc/paths and /etc/paths.d. I did, and found what I was looking for.
Many system-wide settings including PATH are set in /etc/profile which is read in by bash at startup. On Mac OS X this file usually uses path_helper to set PATH. This utility in turn reads the information from other system configuration files under /etc (see path_helper manpage).
Note that even if you disable the reading of the initialization files by bash (e.g. with command-line options like --noprofile) it will still inherit the environment of the parent process.
If you start at /etc/profile, it should look something like this:
if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi
It's testing to see if the file exists and if so, executes it. If you execute it by hand, you'll get something like this:
PATH="/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin"; export PATH;
I believe that's what you're looking for. So it comes from /etc/profile, which in turn calls an executable that sets the path.
As mentioned in the accepted answer, the $PATH is built by first looking into the content of the file /etc/paths, and then looking into every file in the folder /etc/paths.d. So, the $PATH in the pre-installed bash system installation contains every entry in these files, as well as in other shell types.
However, because in the latest Mac OS versions the default shell is zsh, I followed a couple of tutorials in which the writer avoided to change the $PATH for the bash shell, and simply added new entries to the $PATH by editing ~/.zshrc the following way:
export PATH=/path/available/only/for/zsh/shells:$PATH
The above command adds /path/available/only/for/zsh/shells to the $PATH, and the added path will only be available in zsh shells.
I hope this helps someone who, like me, had too many entries in the $PATH in zsh shells, and couldn't figure out where they were coming from!
The .profile file on Mac is located in your user folder: ~/Users/youruser/
However, the .profile file is hidden. You can press Command+shift+. (command, shift, dot) while on Finder to see them.
There's one important fact I only realized today while debugging a problem: the profile settings (.bash_profile etc.) are only read by login shells. They are not read by the processes that are used to launch your applications.
You launch your applications in diverse ways: click the icon in /Applications, or type the name in Spotlight search, or click an icon in the Dock ... In all those cases, the application itself (i.e the binary or shell script inside the application) is launched by launchd without any parent shell. Meaning that your profile is not run and that your custom settings (PATH, environment variables ...) will be ignored.
That can cause all sorts of trouble, for example if you setup you environment to use a specific version of Java: your application will not see that and use the "default" java, which will be the one with the highest version number.
In my case, the problem is that my application was crashing when run via the application launcher, but runs fine when run from a terminal window ... The reason was that I had a custom path that included some libraries required by the application, but that was not available when the application was run by the launcher.
The solution I used was to symlink the libraries needed into /usr/local/lib
I used addpath(pwd) to get my .m files working in my projects directory. When I close the window and start a new window, the path I just added is gone. But the files still run.
Is it in my path or not? How do I see the directories I have added to my path?
Also, . is the first entry I see from path. Does that mean I don't need to add any directories because it will always search the current directory first?
Thanks.
Basically, yes.
You can add a directory to the search path using addpath(), but as you know, it only exists for the current session and is reset when you restart Octave. If you want a path to survive between sessions, add it to your octaverc, a script file that gets run whenever a new session gets started. Example path to octaverc file is:
C:\Octave\3.2.4_gcc-4.4.0\share\octave\site\m\startup
Since . is in your path by default, Octave will search your current directory for any function files that it needs. Using addpath(pwd) is somewhat useless if you're just going to stay in the same directory. However, there are some cases where it'd be useful, if for example you have a directory that contains your functions, and another one that has the data that you're working on: you could start in the functions directory, do addpath(pwd), and then cd to the data directory while still being able to use your functions.
You can create batch file, which will start Octave with your directory path. Please see example below:
octave-3.6.4.exe -p "C:\MyOctaveDiretory"
-p means addpath()
addpath(pwd); savepath();
Done.
I think there is a bug in Octave (I use version 4.0.3 on Windows). When I create a new file in current path, this can't be called by Octave ("error: 'foo' undefined near line 1 column 1"). If I restart Octave, it works. This addpath(pwd) trick helps me a lot (before I unsuccessfully tried rehash() and cd elsewhere and back again).
If you had the same problem, the reason for the symptom might be:
Start Octave.
Create newfile.m.
Call newfile - fails since Octave did not register its existence.
addpath(pwd) - causes Octave to register it.
Close Octave
Start Octave - now pwd is gone from path, but newfile.m is registered at startup.
call newfile - works
I faced a similar problem in adding path where the path was added by using addpath command directly in Octave GUI (Command Window). The path added was being shown in console window but none of the functions worked.
The problem was solved by changing the path directory from Windows directory to some other direction where OS is not installed.
I am looking to enable my terminal with the MacVim/mvim command so that I can access macvim through the terminal.
Following directions, I have downloaded and unzipped the MacVim files.
To be able to access MacVim through the terminal, one requires to set the VIM_APP_DIR environment variable with the value being the location of mvim script or the MacVim path.
By attempting the following command:
export VIM_APP_DIR = "the filepath"
I carried out printenv and VIM_APP_DIR does not exist in the set of environment variables.
Now that sounds more like a problem within a problem. The problem is I am unable to find a way to enable my Mac OS X Lion to be Vim powered and the above was the recommended route towards glory, however leave glory, the actor wasn't even there (VIM_APP_DIR).
First, you may not have to set the VIM_APP_DIR environment variable if you put the MacVim.app bundle in one of the “usual” locations:
~/Applications/ (the Applications folder in your home directory)
/Applications/ (the main Applications folder on the computer)
/Applications/Utilities/
It actually checks a few more locations, too: some relative to the location of the mvim script, and in a vim/ directory under the described directories.
In most cases, you should only need to set VIM_APP_DIR if mvim complains like this:
Sorry, cannot find MacVim.app. Try setting the VIM_APP_DIR enviro
nment variable to the directory containing MacVim.app.
Second, if you have to set VIM_APP_DIR (because you keep MacVim.app in an “unusual” location), the value of the environment variable should be the directory that contains MacVim.app, not the location of MacVim.app or mvim itself.
For example: If, you moved MacVim.app to /MyFavoriteApps/MacVim.app and have mvim available somewhere in your PATH, then you would need to set VIM_APP_DIR to /MyFavoriteApps (not /MyFavoriteApps/MacVim.app).
Third, in bash (the shell you are probably using), parameter assignments must not have spaces around the equal sign. It should look like this:
export VIM_APP_DIR=/MyFavoriteApps
If the pathname has spaces or special characters, then you may need to quote it. Single quotes are a good choice because they represent a literal string (you can include any character except a single quote itself).
export VIM_APP_DIR='/My Favorite Apps'
Last, you will probably want to put this “assignment and export” in your shell’s initialization file to make sure the value is set in all your future shell instances. A good choice is usually ~/.bashrc.
I don't know where you're getting this from. All that is required is to put the mvim script in your path, e.g., /usr/local/bin, and MacVim.app in a "normal" location such as /Applications or ~/Applications. Full list here: https://github.com/b4winckler/macvim/blob/master/src/MacVim/mvim (line 20).