How to Export to $PATH Permanently Without .bashrc File

bashpath

I am trying to figure out macOS and want to install Composer which was not a problem….but I need the Laravel and Symfony installer and in the documentation it says that I need to export the variable in .bashrc file.

Normally that file is in /home/username/ directory on Linux

But where is the .bashrc file on the Mac? How to export to the PATH?

Best Answer

It should be stored in /Users/username/. To append something to your .bashrc file use

echo foo >> ~/.bashrc

Make sure to use >> and not >, as the latter will overwrite the file.

As @fd0 said, you probably want this in your .bash_profile to make sure it loads. I would append to your .bash_profile like this:

echo "export PATH="$HOME/path/added:$PATH"" >> ~/.bash_profile

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.)

How to add a new route to the PATH variable

well first off you only really need it in ~/.bash_profile if you have one.

Second opening a new terminal session without quitting terminal app will not source the ~/.bash_profile file.

You can just type "source ~/.bash_profile" in the terminal and it should pick up your new settings.

Or quit terminal.app and restart it.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Adding Mac-specific directory to PATH when home is shared

How to add a new route to the PATH variable

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