Bash – Where is Cygwin set its PATH variable

bashrccygwin;path

If I write echo $PATH in my Cygwin window (mintty) I get a list of paths. That list does not match the Windows Envirnonement variables list. I cannot find a file, where is the variable $PATH set. None of the ~/.* files like .bashrc, .bash_profile, .profile, .inputrc, .minttyrc contain $PATH setting.
So, where is the variable $PATH actually set?

Best Answer

For bash the PATH is set initially in /etc/profile

  # Setup some default paths. Note that this order will allow user installed
  # software to override 'system' software.
  # Modifying these default path settings can be done in different ways.
  # To learn more about startup files, refer to your shell's man page.

  : ${ORIGINAL_PATH=${PATH}}
  if [ ${CYGWIN_NOWINPATH-addwinpath} = "addwinpath" ] ; then
    PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin${PATH:+:${PATH}}"
  else
    PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin"
  fi

By default it includes the Windows PATH

If you need to modify it the best place are .bash_profile and .bashrc

Related Solutions

Bash – Why Isn’t ‘set’ Behaving as Expected

set MONGODB="/usr/local/mongodb/bin"

This is not a variable assignment. (It is one in C shell (csh, tcsh), but not in Bourne-style shells (sh, ash, bash, ksh, zsh, …).) This is a call to the set built-in, which sets the positional parameters, i.e. $1, $2, etc. Try running this command in a terminal, then echo $1.

To assign a value to a shell variable, just write

MONGODB="/usr/local/mongodb/bin"

This creates a shell variable (also called a (named) parameter), which you can access with $MONGODB. The variable remains internal to the shell unless you've exported it with export MONGODB. If exported, the variable is also visible to all processes started by that shell, through the environment. You can condense the assignment and the export into a single line:

export MONGODB="/usr/local/mongodb/bin"

For what you're doing, there doesn't seem to be a need for MONGODB outside the script, and PATH is already exported (once a variable is exported, if you assign a new value, it is reflected in the environment). So you can write:

MONGODB="/usr/local/mongodb/bin"    
PATH=${PATH}:${MONGODB}

Bash – How to get rid of Cygwin’s /cygdrive prefix in all paths

Grepping around in /etc turned up a link that Googling did not. It turns out you can control this in the file /etc/fstab. Just add a line that says

none / cygdrive binary 0 0

and the problem should be fixed. No more kludgey fixes in .bashrc, and no messed-up $PATH.

Best Answer

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Bash – Why Isn’t ‘set’ Behaving as Expected

Bash – How to get rid of Cygwin’s /cygdrive prefix in all paths

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