PATH – Adding a New Directory to PATH Variable

binarypath

What is the de-facto way to export a binary/executable to my global PATH? I have seen different answers to this, but I am looking for the best answer.

Basically, if I go on Github and download a directory or folder and then I want to add whatever I download to my PATH, what is the recommended way to do that, so that I can echo it in any shell?

Best Answer

Add the directory in PATH variable in ~/.bashrc file. When an interactive, non-login shell is started, ~/.bashrc is executed. That means ~/.bashrc is executed for every new tab/window opened in Terminal.app.

Simply add this line in your ~/.bashrc file:

PATH=$PATH:~/DirectoryName
PATH=~/DirectoryName:$PATH

as per your preference. If the directory name is prepended, any system executable of similar name may get shadowed.

To execute ~/.bashrc and get the new PATH in effect without restarting terminal, execute:

source ~/.bashrc

Also, make sure to enter this line in your ~/.bash_profile

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ] ; then
    . ~/.bashrc
fi

Related Solutions

Adding Mac-specific directory to PATH when home is shared

Test the output of uname; it will be Darwin on OS X and Linux on Linux.

if [[ $(uname) == Darwin ]]; then
    export PATH="$HOME/SW/bin_mac:$PATH"
fi

Alternately, you could just add an appropriate directory on each machine, which will be useful if you find yourself needing a separate Linux bin directory as well in the future.

export PATH="$HOME/SW/bin_$(uname):..."

and either mv or ln -s your bin_mac to bin_Darwin; then you can create a bin_Linux directory in the future if you need it, and it'll just work.

(You could also test $HOSTTYPE, which is set by bash, but it contains more information than you're likely to need.)

MacOS – Escaped path in AppleScript adds leading /

quoted form of also escapes the tilde. quoted form of "~/Pictures" returns '~/Pictures'. open interprets '~/Pictures/' as a relative path, and the default working directory for do shell script is /.

I couldn't get the sqlite commands to work, but try something like this:

path=$(sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/desktoppicture.db 'select data.value from data'|tail -n1);open -b com.adobe.Photoshop "${path/#~/$HOME}"

Or remove the tilde with AppleScript:

set p to "~/Pictures"
if p starts with "~/" then set p to (system attribute "HOME") & text 2 thru -1 of p

You can also get the desktop picture of the current space with System Events:

tell application "System Events" to picture of current desktop

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Adding Mac-specific directory to PATH when home is shared

MacOS – Escaped path in AppleScript adds leading /

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