Zsh can’t see and doesn’t load the ~/.zshrc startup file

file extensionsterminalzsh

After upgrading to Catalina and encountering the zsh upgrade reminder when launching Terminal, I've decided to switch to zsh.

The default interactive shell is now zsh.
To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.
For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

However, I'm having trouble getting Terminal/zsh to recognize the .zshrc startup file located in my home folder. ~/zshrc isn't loaded on launch, and executing source ~/.zshrc returns source: no such file or directory.

The file only contains one line, an alias tying python to python3.

Best Answer

The issue turned out to be that .zshrc had a hidden .txt file extension. Somehow it was automatically named .zshrc.txt, probably when I used TextEdit to edit it, and source doesn't infer the text extension. Finder also doesn't display the .txt extension by default unless you inspect the file, so I hadn't noticed the issue.

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You can also use this sysctl:

sysctl -n vm.loadavg

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If by “all the configurations for bash didn’t work” you mean that customizations made in ~/.bash_profile (or ~/.profile or ~/.login) aren’t taking effect, that’s because bash is being invoked as a non-login shell (it runs ~/.bashrc instead).

To make it a login shell, the simplest solution is to add the -l option:

bash -l

Alternatively, if you want to actually create a login session you can invoke it via the login command. This creates a new login session (as displayed by the who command) and it invokes bash with the name -bash (as displayed by ps) to indicate it’s a login shell (same effect as the -l option):

login -f username bash

Best Answer

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