I understand the difference between .bashrc and .bash_profile (or .bash_login and ~/.profile for that matter), but is there any particular reason to choose .bashrc over .bash_profile for bash shell configuration?
From my understanding, configuration such as terminal colors, environmental variables, etc. in .bashrc will be re-loaded every time a new bash window is open. .bash_profile will only get loaded once at login, and I think that should be enough. Why put anything in .bashrc then?
The only reason I can think of is to avoid having to log out of the system for a configuration to be loaded.
I couldn't find an answer besides purely conventional reasons.
Best Answer
Shell options (from
shoptorset) are not inherited through the environment. Nor are aliases. If you want to, for example, enablefailglobfor all your shells, that needs to be in the RC file. An alias could be replaced with an exported function, but there's no workaround for the options.It is also conventional & encouraged by the manual to have
.bash_profilesource.bashrc, so these configurations that you put in there will be loaded into both login and non-logic shells. If they're only in.bash_profile, they might never be loaded into a shell you actually use at all.Another situation is where you have more complex configuration with actual executable code (for example, some advanced
PROMPT_COMMAND) and want freshly-initialised variables for it to use in each shell. You probably wouldn't want those variables exported at all, or perhaps they are arrays and they can't be.A final case would be for side-effecting command execution: displaying
fortuneor a to-do list in every new shell. That is not so much "configuration", but it is setting up your shell behaviour.There is also the more general case where
bashis not invoked as the login shell (because your session manager does something else, or it isn't your login shell, or ...) and your.bash_profilewould never be processed at all. That may be out of scope for your concern, though.